Letters: Internet switch-off

Sir: Eva Pascoe ("What I would really like from my.govern-ment.com", 20 September) feels frustrated as a taxpayer unable to find information which might enable her to participate in our "new media age" of online government.

These frustrations are felt ten-fold by the UK's 1.7 million people with serious sight problems or blindness.

Poor design renders many government web sites totally inaccessible to disabled Net users who rely on effective structure to a far greater degree than sighted surfers.

If inaccessible design continues to socially exclude disabled people, information poverty will characterise blind people long into the next century.

JULIE HOWELL

Campaigns Officer (Access to Digital)

Royal National Institute for the Blind

London W1