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Foundations: types of disability

Posted on by Demelza Feltham in User experience

This post offers an overview of various disability types across four groups: seeing, hearing, moving, and thinking, and provides a brief exploration of what disability is, highlighting how permanent, temporary, or situational disabilities can affect us all.

We are all, in essence, temporarily abled. As an ageing society, the reality is that our abilities are not fixed - they change over time. Disability is a complex and deeply personal experience that can impact anyone, whether through permanent, temporary, or situational conditions, or even a mix of these.

Disability can be something we live with, something you experience for a period of time, or something that is caused by where you are or what you're doing.

Léonie Watson

The medical and social models of disability can be used to understand how disability impacts an individual: the medical model focuses on the personal aspects of disability, while the social model highlights how societal attitudes, infrastructure, and inaccessible environments can disable individuals.

Disability results from the interaction between individuals with a health condition, such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and depression, and personal and environmental factors including negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation and public buildings, and limited social support.

World Health Organisation (WHO)

When something is inaccessible, it can be inaccessible to people with a permanent disability, such as blindness, but also those with temporary disabilities, like a migraine, or situational challenges, such as struggling to read a screen due to sun glare. Disability and accessibility (or inaccessibility) will impact us all at some point, and by designing inclusively and considering the full diversity of human experiences, we can do our best to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, can fully participate in society.

Disabilities can be broadly categorised into four groups: seeing, hearing, moving, and thinking.

Seeing

Seeing: a bright purple outline of an eye chart with a bold orange E at the top. On the row below are smaller muted red letters for S and L. The bottom line has three smaller letters; H, T, and O, made up of muted purple dots, as the letters become harder to see
Seeing

This refers to disabilities related to vision, which affect a person's ability to see.

Permanent

Temporary

  • Eye injury: people who may have a scratched eye, conjunctivitis, or an infection
  • Surgery recovery: people recovering from cataract surgery, retinal repair, or general surgery that may affect vision
  • Migraines and eye strain: people who have blurred vision, are sensitive to light or white backgrounds

Situational

  • Sunlight: people struggling to read screens in bright sunlight due to the glare and will benefit from high colour contrast
  • Low light: people having difficulty seeing details in dark or dimly lit areas
  • Driving: People who are driving cannot visually engage with a screen and must rely on auditory alternatives such as voice notes or hands-free voice commands

Meet Hasmukh: a blind cricketer and screen reader user. Hasmukh shares his experience using the web with a screen reader and highlights the importance of accessible emails, forms, language, and prioritising content within a web page.

A black and white photo of Hasmukh, an older man of South Asian heritage. He is wearing his cricket whites standing and looking into the camera with a cheeky smile as he holds his bat which is resting on his left shoulder
Hasmukh, a blind cricketer, "I use the web to shop, listen to spiritual talks, and plan transport to cricket matches. Images are important as often they include information I need when shopping and finding out match information".

Hearing

Hearing: two clusters of vertical bars of varying heights resemble sound waves. The bright purple bars on the left are separated from the muted purple bars on the right by a vertical column of red dots indicating a barrier or filter
Hearing

This refers to disabilities related to hearing, which affect a person's ability to hear.

A note on Deaf and deaf: Capitalised Deaf refers to the cultural identity and shared experiences of the Deaf community. Lowercase deaf describes the physical condition of hearing loss.

Permanent

  • Deaf (upper case): people who are Deaf identify as part of a cultural and linguistic community, often using sign language as their primary means of communication and rely on captions in video
  • deaf (lower case): people who are deaf have hearing loss and typically use spoken language, often with assistive devices like hearing aids and may rely on captions in video

Temporary

  • Ear infections: people with discomfort in the ear and can in some cases lead to temporary hearing loss
  • Tinnitus: people with a temporary or chronic ringing or buzzing in the ear with no external source
  • Cold or sinus infections: people that are experiencing congestion due to a cold or infection may experience blocked ears and difficulty with balance, temporarily affecting their hearing and stability

Situational

  • Noisy environments: people on public transport who can't hear clearly due to the surrounding noise and rely on captions when watching something on their screen
  • Quiet environments: people in a library or in a room with someone sleeping will avoid using sound on their device, and may activate captions
  • Flying: people flying may experience reduced hearing clarity due to cabin pressure and surrounding noise, making it necessary for them to rely on captions when watching in-flight entertainment

Meet Steve: a photographer who is deaf and low vision. Steve shares his experience of the web including increasing font size and using good colour contrast as well as the joys of using his Bluetooth headphones.

A black and white photo of Steve, an older white man with thick white hair. He is facing into the camera while he holds his camera over his right eye
Steve, a poet and photographer who is hard of hearing and has low vision, "Accessibility means I can confidently plan travel and enjoy an audiobook through my hearing aids using an app".

Moving

Moving

This refers to disabilities related to moving, which affect a person's ability to perform physical tasks.

Permanent

  • Parkinson’s disease: people with Parkinson's disease have their movement impacted, causing tremors, bradykinesia and rigidity, and who may browse with speech recognition and may benefit from clear visible text field labels, accessible names and descriptions and increased target sizes
  • Motor Neurone Disease (MND): people with MND experience a gradual loss of mobility and increasingly struggle with speaking and swallowing as the condition progresses and may browse with speech recognition
  • Missing an arm or hand: people can be born without an arm or hand, or can be the result of a congenital condition or accident, leading them to rely on assistive technology, and may browse with speech recognition

Temporary

  • Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI): a condition caused by repetitive motion or overuse, leading to pain and discomfort which can often impact wrists, shoulders and neck, and may browse with a keyboard
  • Broken wrist: people may experience temporary pain and have restricted use of the hand or arm
  • Pregnancy: people who are pregnant may experience swelling, joint pain, reduced mobility, increased flexibility in some joints due to hormonal changes, and fatigue

Situational

  • Cold hands: people with cold hands may struggle to use their fingers to interact with their phone as they normally would, as stiffness or reduced sensation can make precise movements difficult and they will benefit from increased target sizes
  • Holding heavy shopping bags: people holding heavy shopping bags have restricted movement and limit the use of their hands for other tasks
  • Wet hands: people who are washing dishes or have been swimming may be restricted from using digital devices until their hands are dry and will need to rely on alternative input methods, such as voice commands, and text to speech functionality
  • Cooking: people that are cooking and following a recipe online may struggle to interact with their devices easily due to messy or wet hands, making it challenging to scroll, type, or touch screens
A black and white photo of Bev, a white woman in her 50s with blond hair scooped back in a hairband. She is sitting in front of a canvas laughing while she paints with her right hand and holds the canvas and some paint brushes in her prosthetic hand and arm
Bev, an artist with a prosthetic arm, "Accessibility means being able to do things on my own terms, and in my own time".

Thinking

This refers to disabilities related to neurodivergence, which affect a person's ability to process information, communicate and interact socially.

Thinking: a bright pink gear connected to a smaller purple gear above it by a wavey line of orange dots. The bright pink gear slots together with a smaller purple gear on the bottom right showing a different way to make a connection
Thinking

Permanent

  • Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD): is a developmental condition affecting social interaction, communication, and behaviour, impacting people in diverse ways and to varying degrees. People with ASD can be assisted by browsing with screen magnification to minimise distraction, and will benefit from accessible animations and flashing content
  • Dyslexia: people with dyslexia who struggle with reading, spelling, and writing and may browse with speech recognition and may benefit from accessible session timeouts and accessible animations and flashing content that reduce distraction
  • Dyscalculia: people with dyscalculia who have difficulty in processing and understanding numbers, managing time, and handling math-related tasks that may benefit from clear text descriptions, consistent page formatting and accessible session timeouts

Temporary

  • Cold or flu: symptoms like headaches, fatigue and congestion will impact people's ability to focus, and perform tasks with their usual dexterity
  • Recovering from an operation: people experiencing fatigue and brain fog from anaesthesia, pain, or medication may find their ability to focus, make decisions, and retain information temporarily impacted
  • Jet lag: people who are experiencing jet lag often have a disrupted circadian rhythm, leading to impaired focus, memory issues, and confusion or disorientation caused by traveling across time zones
  • Hungover: people who are hungover may experience brain fog due to dehydration, fatigue from disrupted sleep, a dysregulated nervous system, and slower reaction times

Situational

  • Using a different language: people who are non-native speakers may face challenges with comprehension and communication when using a language they are less familiar with, potentially leading to difficulties in understanding, delays in completing tasks, and problem-solving issues
  • Working under pressure: people experiencing stress and anxiety triggered from working under pressure may have reduced cognitive clarity, impaired memory and lack critical thinking
  • Multitasking: people that are juggling a lot at the same time may experience an increased cognitive load, leading to difficulties with focus, processing information, and communication

Meet Lauren: a film editor who has ADHD. Lauren shares what helps her stay focused when browsing the web and why white backgrounds and autoplaying video are not helpful for her.

A black and white photo of Lauren, a younger white woman with long curly red hair. She is grinning as she sits at a desk with an On Air sign on it as she holds a strip of film up to the light with her left hand and inspects it closely
Lauren, a film editor who has ADHD and chronic pain, "Accessible software lets me adapt my environment and online experience, so I can focus on what I want to do".

Next steps

Find out more accessibility foundations posts or browse our training classes, training courses, and training programmes.

Demelza Feltham

Demelza is an Accessibility Specialist at TetraLogical. She specialises in accessibility testing.

Prior to joining, Demelza worked as an Accessibility Analyst at User Vision within their digital accessibility team. Demelza has experience working across multiple sectors, regularly conducting accessibility audits, supporting user research initiatives, and co-running empathy labs.

Demelza holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Philosophy, complemented by a Master of Science in Religious Studies. Additionally, she has earned a UX diploma, further solidifying her understanding of human centred design principles.

Demelza Feltham
Photograph of Demelza, looking fresh faced with a huge smile and wavy shoulder length light brown hair

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