World Sight Day
World Sight Day is an annual awareness day held on the second Thursday of October, coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). Nearly everyone will experience an eye health issue in their lifetime, yet over a billion people still lack access to the services and treatments they need. The 2026 campaign continues the #LoveYourEyes movement, building towards the Global Summit for Eye Health.
Vision loss spans a wide range, and globally low vision is far more common than total blindness. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative’s user story for Elias, a retired architect with low vision, hand tremor and short-term memory loss, describes how he uses the browser’s text-size controls and zoom to read the news, video calls to keep in touch with grandchildren, and an online grocery shop that remembers his address and card details. The barriers he hits are familiar: text that doesn’t reflow when resized so he has to scroll sideways, tiny buttons and form controls that are hard to hit with a tremor, and CAPTCHAs with distorted text he can’t read.
Websites that work well for people with similar access needs let text reflow cleanly when resized or zoomed without needing horizontal scrolling, provide generous contrast between text and background, use large, well-spaced links, buttons and form controls, save information like delivery addresses so users don’t have to retype it, and replace image-based CAPTCHAs with simpler alternatives such as a short numeric code sent by text.
Related topics
- Vision & Blindness
Vision impairment, low vision, and blindness, including non-visual access to digital content through screen readers, magnification, and high-contrast or customisable presentation.
- Inclusive Design
A design practice that considers the full range of human diversity from the start, working with disabled people through co-design and inclusive research rather than retrofitting.