The Challenges of People with Cognitive Disabilities Using the Internet

“Provide good content” is what many people say in order to increase your site rankings and convert your readers to customers. So you work to create the most informative and interesting articles out there.

But you must know that there are people whose comprehension is different from yours. What’s basic and simple to you may be too complex to others. How can you be sure that everyone would understand your content?

Here, we give you the answer by discussing the challenges faced by Internet users with cognitive disabilities. Joining us is Tristan, our friend who shared with us A Day in the Life of a Person with a Cognitive Disability. For each challenge below, we provide a solution to help people such as Tristan as they use your web site.

Baffling Blocks of Text

Tristan finds a site that offers how to articles about daily living. He’s happy to find this site because he needs to replace a light bulb in his home and he wants to know how to correctly do it.

He finds the article he wants. He spends a few minutes reading it, and decides to leave the site and find another resource. It’s such a shame though because that site has complete information about the task.

Why did Tristan leave the site? It’s because the information was provided in long sentences and fat paragraphs. Since the information is displayed in huge blocks of text, Tristan found it hard to easily read and understand each step. For a moment, he even became confused due to the way the steps were presented. Tristan ultimately decided to find another web site having the information he needs.

Large blocks of text can be intimidating and at times annoying to non-disabled people. But this is beyond annoying for persons with cognitive disabilities. These things can entirely prevent them from reading and understanding even the smallest details.

You can ensure that your site doesn’t cause this problem by making your text more readable. Start with your sentences. You should try to write shorter sentences containing just one idea. Then make your paragraphs shorter by including four to five sentences in each paragraph. Generally, it’s good to have paragraphs that have three to four lines.

Trouble with Tables

Tristan wants to manage his expenses better. So he looks for a site that can help him make a budget. He finds one using Google, and is immediately drawn to the site by its detailed and clear description.

But things didn’t seem so clear when he saw the table containing the sample budget. There were multiple sublevels of information and smaller columns under each column. Again, this page contains all the steps he needs but the example which is very important to Tristan is too complex.

There is nothing wrong with using complex tables. But if you have them in your site, make sure you explain the structure clearly. This includes discussing the levels of information and the relationships of each sublevel. Basically, what readers such as Tristan are looking for is an explanation of the table’s structure and its components.

You can place this discussion before the actual complex table. Start by discussing the main table headings and then talk about each sublevel under each main heading.

Information Through Images

For most Internet users, a site that has little or no images can be quite dull. But to persons like Tristan, images give a more profound form of support aside from entertainment.

Tristan visits the web site of his favorite grocery. He can use the site well except for one issue. The site doesn’t contain images of the store’s available products. So when Tristan adds something to his online shopping cart, he takes much time just to double check what he’s getting.

Persons with cognitive disabilities can understand things more quickly if images are provided along with the corresponding text. This site can therefore be improved by placing an image of the product beside its name.

Where am I Now?

It is time to buy new books for the library. Being the library assistant, it is Tristan’s task to look for popular books on the Internet. He finds a site that has reviews of new and famous books.

The site has lots of informative pages. Tristan moves from page to page while taking notes. He eventually wonders about his location in the site. He finds it difficult to know where he is because each page looks the same. So Tristan returned to the site’s homepage through Google and started over again.

When people get lost in your site, they will have a great chance of eventually leaving it. Tristan, for instance, finds the last title he needs in the site and decides to find other resources.

It is nonetheless easy to tell the visitors their current location. You can change your page title to describe the main content. You can also use the main heading to tell users the page’s content. Additionally, you can provide bread crumbs to tell them exactly where they are.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the problems faced by individuals with cognitive disabilities. You can make your site accessible to these people by checking your site for these issues and making the necessary changes. You also have to ensure that everything is explained properly and is provided in a simple structure. Through these steps, you’ll have and keep more visitors, regardless of what their level of comprehension is.