Web Accessibility Facts & Figures

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Statistics

Having text-based content is becoming more important with the growth of Personal Digital Assistants and with Web site content being delivered to cell phones.

According to the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) Forum, which governs WAP technology's development, WAP users will number nearly 100 million by year's end.

By 2004, according to the Cahners In-Stat Group, the number of surfers accessing the Web via cell phones or PDAs will reach 743 million globally.

More than three-quarters of Finns own a mobile device (compared to 32% in the U.S.); in Japan, one-third of the country's 27 million Internet users go online using a cell phone. The U.S. is jumping on the bandwidth wagon. By 2003, according to IDC (provider of information technology industry analysis, market data, etc.), the number of Americans with Web-enabled phones will quintuple -- from 8 million to 40 million. -- The Industry Standard grok, Nov. 2000

According to the Lighthouse National Survey on Vision Loss, 13.5 million people over the age of 45 report some kind of impaired vision, even wearing corrective lenses. By the year 2010, when the last of the baby boomers turns 45, the figure will grow to 20 million. The survey concluded that vision loss is a major public health issue and will demand even more attention as our population continues to age.

The National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute estimates more than three million Americans have low vision, almost one million are "legally blind," and roughly 200,000 are totally blind.