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At its most basic, the web allows for two modes of access: visual and non-visual. For the most part, our design attention is focused on making decisions that affect the visual, or surface, layercolors and type, screen dimensions, fixed or flexible layouts. However, much of the power of the technology lies beneath the surface, in the underlying code of the page. There, in the unseen depths of the page code, we make decisions that influence how well, or poorly, our pages are read and interpreted by software. In this paper, we shift our attention beneath the surface of the web and focus on design decisions that affect nonvisual access to web pages.

Awareness of the nature and implication of legislation and policy regarding web accessibility in different countries is important in guiding organizational web accessibility policy. Our review of published legislation and supporting documentation relating to disability rights and digital accessibility in five countriesAustralia, Brazil, China, India and South Africa-reveals diversity in the nature and extent of legislation and policy, but offers some indication of trends that could inform a global web accessibility policy.

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