Farfalla: a step toward an inclusive web

The concept of Architectural Barrier can be extended to the Web, in the sense that people with disability can experience problems in accessing pages which are designed for the able-bodied. Despite of this, many users with different kind of disabilities regularly access the web using some kind of Assistive Technology. This means they can use a variety of resources and web 2.0 tools, but they need to be on their own computers, with their own accessibility software and configuration, in order to use them at best. The Farfalla project is a web application which aims to allow users to set their accessibility preferences on a centralized website and then to apply them to every other website they will visit. This approach can work from any web browser, on (almost) any machine, even without administrative privileges: the only requirement is a javascript-enabled browser with internet connection. In order to accomplish this, the Farfalla script only needs to be included in a target web page in the form of a small piece of HTML code. The attempt is to move the accessibility solutions from the user’s computer to the web itself; in this paper is explained why, if widespread, this practice could be the base for a truly inclusive web