National Policies on the Use of Web Services by the Differently Abled Community in Sri Lanka: An analysis of Problems and Issues

Abstract

Objective of this research is to find out on problems and issues in national policies on the use of web services need to be considered for differently able community in Sri Lanka. This research covers three areas such as; What are the national policies on differently able community in Sri Lanka?, How they are addressed by other countries in the world? , What are the problems and issues in National policies on accessibility of Web services by differently able citizens in Sri Lanka?. Survey was conducted based on analysis of research papers, National Po1icies and Act for dis- abled community in developed countries and Sri Lanka and W3C(The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) rules and regulations. Findings were further analyzed and guidelines are proposed for Na- tional policy makers in Sri Lanka. Findings indicated that, use of different web services for day today life by disable and non disabled community are not significantly different. Issues faced by the differently able community are ad- dressed by the W3C. Most of the developed countries around the world introduced legislation which either directly addresses the need for websites and other forms of communication to be accessible to disabilities. This study also proposed some guidelines for Sri Lankan policy makers to their consid- eration on changes required for differently able community