Accessibility

The SXSW interactive panel picker is open and I wanted to tell people about the panels that are proposed that Adobe is involved with. Whether panels for SXSW run or not is determined in part by an interactive panel picker - please take a look and vote for accessibility sessions!

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ (you will need to register, which is painless and has no captcha).

Accessibility Talks and Panels

• Accessible Flash and Flex Applications - this panel is not fully populated, but Niqui Merrit has agreed to join it, and it'll be a great discussion.
• WCAG 2.0: Practical Implications for Web Accessibility Now - this panel is submitted by the W3C but also includes discussion of non-W3C technologies.
• Inclusive Universe 1.0 - Integrating Universal Design into Social Apps - this is Wendy Chisholm's talk with Matt May. Should be fascinating!
• ARIA Duet in the Key of A(jax) - this is a panel put on by Knowbility and will also be of interest for accessibility

Other Adobe talks

These are of interest - they aren't all about accessibility directly, but are interesting people and interesting topics

• Psst! The Money is in the Metadata! - with Mark Randall from Adobe. When I read this I think "more closed captioning"...
• Diversification: the Path to Web Design Riches - with Scott Fegette, Dreamweaver Product Manager.
• Uncovering Dynamic Content and Rich Internet Applications Through Runtime Search - with Justin Everett-Church, Flash Player Product Manager.
• How SoDA is Changing Interactive Design and Development - with Jen Taylor from Adobe.

Please vote and we'll see you in Austin!

Posted by Andrew Kirkpatrick at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Accessibility in the Flash Player and in products that depend on it is very important, and there is a lot more built in support for accessibility than most people are aware of. The Flash Player supports over 60 different role constants and has mechanisms for developers to set role and state information for controls, has methods for getting and setting values, and allows developers to define the accessibility location information for a control to help screen magnification tools restrict the magnified viewport, control the accessibility API focus and selection, and more.

In the documentation package linked below you’ll find:

1. Documentation of the flash.accessibility package and AccessibilityImplementation class


2. Documentation of the mx.accessibility package and accessibility implementation classes for Flex components


3. Improvements to “getting started” articles about accessibility, including a information about implementing accessibility on a sample component.

Developers have asked for this information, which has been until now not publicly shared. The documentation that we are now providing is a draft that we would love to hear comments on. To comment on this, please either log bugs on our Flex bug database at http://bugs.adobe.com/jira, orat the Flex Documentation blog entry on this topic, or you can leave comments here.

The documentation is the result of the efforts of the Flash Player, Flex, and Adobe Corporate Accessibility teams – let us know your thoughts!

UPDATE: I've modifed the files for download in response to questions from some reviewers. The zips previously contained files for accessibility that had changed in the langref, but this resulted in flash.accessibility.AccessibilityProperties apparently being removed and replaced by flash.accessibility.AccessibilityImplementation. This is not the case, both are present. Sorry for the confusion.

Download the Flash and Flex accessibility documentation by clicking on the "download now" button.

Download the "accessibility-only version of the Flash and Flex accessibility documentation.

Posted by Andrew Kirkpatrick at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Adobe Reader 9 is out and I wanted to point out where to download Reader and to mention that there is a new document available to help screen reader users understand how to access PDF.

The Guide was created in conjunction with AFB Consulting (the consulting arm of the American Foundation for the Blind) and provides information for users of two tools (JAWS and Window-Eyes) to help understand what is possible and expected when interacting with different types of PDF documents that are commonly found online. The types are PDF documents that are:

1. tagged correctly for accessibility


2. untagged, with no author attention to accessibility


3. scanned documents


4. interactive forms

Helping users understand the differences between these documents and how their assistive technologies can be best used is an important step toward efficient user of PDF files by screen reader users. We hope that this guide is useful, and are interested in any comments.

The guide is presently available as a PDF file, but will also be available as a series of HTML pages soon.

The guide and reader 9 can both be accessed from the Reader 9 accessibility page, at http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/reader/.

Posted by Andrew Kirkpatrick at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Adobe announced Acrobat 9 yesterday, so I want to point out the resources that are available to people interested in accessibility. The Acrobat 9 accessibility page is located at http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/, and from there you can read the brief overview, find information about what's new in Acrobat 9, and locate the Acrobat FAQ for accessibility.

Posted by Andrew Kirkpatrick at 03:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I spoke at the Webmaniacs conference in Washington DC last week. My speaking slides are available for download.

Posted by Andrew Kirkpatrick at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)