Microsoft makes Windows 95 apps more accessible
By Robert Bellinger
EE Times 06/02/97 page 113

Redmond, WA - Microsoft Corp. has introduced Active Accessibility, a set of
program files designed to make it easier for applications running under
Windows 95 with the Explorer browser to add accessibility aids such as screen
magnifiers, voice boxes, and keyboard shortcuts. 

In addition, Microsoft is requiring vendors who participate in the Windows NT
and Windows 95 logo program to meet certain accessibility design requirements. 

"Today, accessibility is simply too difficult," according to a paper listed
on Microsoft's Web site (www.microsoft.com/enable/). "It's hard for
applications to be accessible without limiting their design options, and it's
hard for accessibility aids to be compatible with the wide range of
applications," the paper says. 

Active Accessibility provides a way for the operating system and applications
to cooperate with accessibility aids. Microsoft has applied OLE and Component
Object Model standards to accessibility to help components work together. 

"An application creates 'objects' representing things on the screen,"
according to Microsoft. "These objects provide the specific information
needed by ac- cessibility aids, such as the name and type of the object and
where it's located on the screen. Most importantly, this information is
standardized across all applications, so an accessibility aid should be able
to work with any application that supports Active Accessibility, even if they
were never tested together before. 

Active Accessibility will solve some 'hard compatibility problems that in the
past have been impossible to resolve," Microsoft said. 

A software developer's kit is now available with development and testing
tools, and documentation. 

Microsoft has beefed up its logo program to encourage developers to design
their applications for use by people who are blind, deaf, or
mobility-impaired. To use the logo on their packaging, vendors must: 

  Support the control panel's size, color, mouse and keyboard settings.  

  Support the high-contrast mode. Vendors must also allow users to adjust
  colors. 

  Provide and document keyboard access to all features. A product carrying
  the logo cannot mandate the use of a mouse alone, for instance. 

  Expose location of the keyboard focus.

In the past, the logo program only recommended, but did not require these 
accessibility guidelines. The guidelines were developed in part with the help
of the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin, at Madison. 

Call for standards

The Trace Center has been pushing the engineering community to adopt
"universal design" standards that don't preclude people with disabilities.
Some of the design guidelines are as simple as placing on-off knobs in the
front a PC, or allowing a function to be executed with a single key instead
of three. 

Greg Lowney, senior program manager at Microsoft's Accessibility and
Disabilities Group, said "there's still a ways to go" before the design
community fully integrates accessibility into the design process, and
integrates it early, while the features are still relatively inexpensive to
add. 

Disabilities  activists have pointed out that some functions developed for
people with disabilities are now used by everyone: pay phones with volume
controls; curb cuts; and TVs with on-screen type that scrolls along the
bottom. 

Active Accessibility is now a part of Microsoft's Explorer Web browser,
Lowney said. Disabilities groups have targeted Internet access as essential
for the disabled. With so much of the Internet dependent on point-and-click
functions, blind and mobility-impaired users have complained of being shut
out. Lowney said Explorer has "a number of accessibility features in it."  

Active Accessibility will be available on Windows NT 5.0 and on Memphis, the
next iteration of Windows 95. There are no plans to incorporate Active
Accessibility into the current NT 4.0 version, however.