OpenOffice.org Accessibility Project

Project Goal

Making OpenOffice.org accessible means to make it usable by people regardless of their disabilities.

There are various Accessibility aspects: Keyboard navigation, scheming, AT support and much more.

Details can be found here: http://ui.openoffice.org/accessibility/whitepaper.html.

Making OpenOffice.org accessible

There are three strategies to make OpenOffice.org accessible:

• Keyboard navigation

  Allow the user to control OpenOffice.org completely with the keyboard so that the use of a mouse is not necessary.

  OpenOffice.org is already controllable in large parts via the keyboard. As open task remain for instance switching into and between dialogs and activating and deactivating OLE objects.

• Visual and keyboard enhancements

  Keyboard enhancements comprise the support of keyboard like input devices that differ from standard keyboards. This support is covered by the operating systems that OpenOffice.org runs on.

  Visual enhancements like enlarged and clearer fonts are already possible with the existing OpenOffice.org.

• Assistive technology

  Assistive technology comprise such different devices like screen readers and braille terminals. There are several APIs that serve as common abstraction of the various AT input and output devices. We are aiming at the Java Accessibility API as the only truly operating system independent member of that group while at the same time keeping an eye on the Gnome Accessibility API. Both are very similar in the way they represent an application and the kind of information they provide for the individual parts of the (G)UI.

  Our approach of supporting AT with the UNO Accessibility API is documented here in detail.

  A list of AT known to work with OpenOffice.org is maintained on http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Accessibility.

Participation

To participate in the work of making OpenOffice.org accessible, ask questions, or make comments you can use the accessibility@ui.openoffice.org mailing list.

Links

• Local links:
  • Accessibility White Paper
  • List of Disabilities and Assistive Technology
  • The UNO Accessibility API (UAA)
  • How OpenOffice.org supports Assistive Technology through the UAA
  • Test tool: the Accessibility Work Bench
• APIs:
  • UNO Accessibility API: http://ui.openoffice.org/accessibility/unoapi.html
• Java Accessibility (version 1.4): http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/access/
• The Gnome Accessibility Project: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/
• Laws regarding accessibility:
  • List of legal issues in different countries from the Gnome Accessibility Project: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/laws.html
• Home page of section 508: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/508home.html
• Section 508 software analysis: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/report/software.htm
• Guidlines for writing accessible documents:
  • Guidlines from the W3 Consortium: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
• HTML related page from IBM: http://www-3.ibm.com/able/accessweb.html
• 'Bobby' is a tool for HTML page authors that can check existing pages: http://www.cast.org/bobby

Related Project

• OpenOffice.org User Experience Project