Automated Support for Older Adult Accessibility of E-Government Web Sites

The NSF-funded research described in this paper focuses on the development of automated software tools for improving Web accessibility for older adults. The Web offers great promise for immediate access to government information and resources that might not otherwise be available. Yet, there are design and information content barriers to the use of these Web sites making them virtually inaccessible to many older users. As such, automated support is essential for improving the accessibility of government Web sites by minimizing the cost and resources required to modify them. This paper describes some of the issues associated with Web accessibility for older adults and the proposed software solutions for addressing them.