Motor & Physical Accessibility

Motor and physical accessibility covers a wide range: spinal cord injury, limb difference, paralysis, RSI (repetitive strain injury), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, tremor, post-stroke motor impact, fatigue conditions. The input methods people use are just as varied: keyboards used one finger at a time, switch devices, joysticks, head pointers, eye tracking, speech recognition.

Two W3C user stories illustrate part of this. Ade, a reporter with limited use of his arms uses a joystick, a large-key keyboard, and speech recognition. Each has trade-offs, so it matters that pages have a visible focus indicator, a logical tab order, and controls that speech software can identify by name. Elias, a retired architect with a hand tremor, finds small, dense controls hard to hit accurately. The underlying principles, generous targets, keyboard-first design, and multiple input methods, apply across both stories.

Make sure every interactive element is reachable and usable with a keyboard alone. Show a clear focus indicator. Match the tab order to the visual layout. Use large, well-spaced controls. Let users close dialogs with Escape and pause or extend long forms.