All About Access

Morning: Notice that someone has reported a bug against the Orca screen reader. (It seems that Orca is not properly announcing the name of a combo box in the sound-juicer media player. In addition the combo box is not in the Tab order.) Confirm the problem and provide additional information which will help those troubleshooting.

Lunch time: Decide you want to troubleshoot yourself. Grab a copy of sound-juicer’s source code. Identify where things have broken. Attempt to fix the code yourself. Verify that you can now Tab to the combo box and that Orca is now reading the combo box’s name. Attach your proposed patch to the bug for others to examine.

Mid-afternoon: Participate in discussion related to how Orca should best handle such situations on its end. Try the improved version of your patch proposed by Sun’s Rich Burridge and confirm that it works. Bow humbly** to Rich’s three decades’ worth of computer industry experience.

Late afternoon: Notice that Rich has transferred the bug, along with the patch which fixes the sound-juicer problem, to the sound-juicer guys for their consideration. Marvel at the turn-around time between the identification of an accessibility problem and the implementation of a fix in the mainstream product in which the problem lies. Smile at the fact that the entire process took place in the open so that anyone interested in the problem could participate in developing its solution. Consider that this is what “open communication and the shaping of accessible technology” is actually all about.

** This sounds much more sarcastic than it is. Rich is a veritable wealth of information, and he is more than happy to share what he knows. Much of what I am able to do today as a “participant” is a direct result of his ongoing, patient tutelage. Thanks Rich!!

I just discovered that Microsoft has an Accessibility Evangelist: Daniel Hubbell who blogs at Dan’s Ease of Access Blog. Dan even had a constructive answer to the rhetorical question I asked the other day, namely: “Where do you even begin” when attempting to get to the bottom of an accessibility regression in the Windows environment? He responded:

… you can start with me. My email is dhubbell@microsoft.com.

This is wonderful! Thanks Dan!! I wish I had known about you and your blog sooner. If nothing else, we could have chatted about ribbons. At CSUN perhaps?

We certainly need more Dans in the world. Especially given that the majority of us — myself included, I’m afraid — are not all that “connected” to the mainstream tech industry and truly do not know whom to contact when a problem arises. As Dan said, there are indeed “many dedicated individuals” — not just at Microsoft, I might add — who “have spent a good portion of thier(sic) lives championing accessibility in technology and computing.” Unfortunately, it is too often the case that we don’t know who these individuals are or how to reach them. That’s why I really appreciate Dan’s willingness to publicly step up to the plate on behalf of Microsoft.

I hope other companies and their evangelists follow suit. After all, there are a lot of different mainstream and assistive products being used in tandem in the “Windows environment,” only some of which were created by Microsoft. Because nearly all of those products are closed-source, we are prevented from looking “under the hood” as it were to determine if we need to get a hold of Microsoft, or Adobe, or Corel, or Symantec, or Google, or Skype, or Freedom Scientific, or Ai Squared, or someone else, or some combination thereof. All we know is that something somewhere is failing. That is a very unsatisfactory position in which to find oneself. The more Dans we have to contact, the more likely we are to find solutions to accessibility problems. Or perhaps more accurately, the more likely we are to have someone else find and implement solutions on our behalf which will hopefully meet our needs. But that is still a vast improvement over not even knowing where to begin and not having any solutions!

I don’t know about you, but I tend to ignore press releases and similar such creatures: Credibility issues aside, the substance-to-fluff ratio is just too low. Every once in a while, however, you do come across one of substance — often it’s unintended substance (remember FS’ HumanWare Trade-In announcement two weeks after they acquired Jonathan Mosen?), but it’s substance nonetheless.

Today’s semi-substantive PR offering comes from GW Micro, which begins:

A milestone has been set in the assistive technology industry. Today, Ai Squared, developer of ZoomText screen magnification software and GW Micro, developer of Window-Eyes screen reading software announced that both applications could be installed and run together at the same time on the new Windows Vista operating system, providing never-before-seen access to a new operating system for blind and visually impaired consumers.

For those outside of the assistive technology field, many would ask, “Why is this such a great accomplishment?” For years, there have been difficulties trying to make new Windows operating systems accessible to visually impaired consumers due to problems and compatibility issues. However today, for the first time ever, two assistive technology companies collaborated to make sure that these types of problems are a thing of the past for blind and visually impaired consumers.

I’ll grant you that this is a milestone. That said, for those inside the assistive technology field, many would ask, “What took you so long?” Why did it take well over a decade for two companies who are not even in direct competition with one another to reach the conclusion the community would best be served by collaborating?

Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I suspect that the motivation was not the end user who needs to be able to use both a screen reader and a screen magnifier. Nor do I think that this move was inspired by the Assistive Technology specialists who over the years have had to become registry hackers extraordinaire in order to get multiple access products merely to co-exist (let alone run) on a single machine. No, as has oft been said, the first law of nature is self preservation, and it’s probably only a matter of time before we see a Window-Eyes/ZoomText trade-in program….

If the end users were truly at the center of the commercial AT universe, these companies — and their competition — would implement support for mainstream open source products because free solutions are of tremendous benefit to the user. They would work together to further reduce the problems associated with access via display driver interception — or, better still, work with Microsoft to eliminate the need for this sort of hacking chaining — because that, too, would greatly benefit the user.

As an aside, you’ve not lived until you have had a teacher or a parent call you up literally in tears because they installed JAWS/MAGic/ZoomText/Window-Eyes, and now their only computer — which they desperately need — no longer works. At all. But in the spirit of accentuating the positive, after it happens a few dozen times, you can walk folks reassuringly through the fixes in your sleep. One of the myriad joys of Linux/UNIX is that no one ever says “DCM” to (or shouts it at) you. But I digress. Where was I? Ah, yes, the press release:

GW Micro recently made history by distributing a version of Window-Eyes available to all blind consumers that would work under Windows Vista on the same day that Vista shipped to the general public. “This is the first time ever in the history of computers that a full-fledged screen reader is available to work on a new Windows operating system on the same day that it ships,” said Doug Geoffray, Vice President of Product Development for GW Micro. “A blind or visually impaired consumer could go down to their local electronics store, buy a computer, and have access to it on the same day Vista came out, just like their sighted counterparts. This is absolutely ground-breaking!”

And the fact that it is indeed absolutely ground-breaking after all these years is absolutely sad, but kudos to GW Micro all the same.

I suppose it would be superfluous to suggest how absolutely ground-breaking it would be for a blind or visually impaired consumer to be able to use the free OpenOffice.org suite just like their sighted counterparts do.

Ai Squared and GW Micro both agree that their cooperative efforts will improve the lives of millions of blind and visually impaired people around the globe.

If you take those millions and eliminate

1. the folks who cannot afford to spend $895 for Window-Eyes and/or $395-$595 for ZoomText on top of the cost of Windows, and Microsoft Office, and the computer
2. the folks who speak one of the many languages around the globe that are not supported by Window-Eyes and ZoomText

how many are left?

Is it any wonder that there are so many presentations on ODF and Open Source Solutions at CSUN?

Yesterday when I read Peter Korn’s announcement that OpenDocument v1.1 is now an OASIS standard, I almost whipped out a quick entry. Now I’m glad I waited because there’s even more good news thanks to the accessibility guys at OpenOffice.org: Version 2.2 for Linux/UNIX, currently in development, now exposes tons of text attributes to assistive technologies, which means screen readers such as Orca can now provide those details to the user. And that, of course, means that users who are blind can identify exactly how the text in their documents is formatted and be confident that what they have produced looks the way they intended. Thanks guys!!!