Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Laws and standards

Hi Alex,

At 02:25 7/12/2010, Alex Midence wrote:
> Well, my thinking is and always will be that Libre Office is better
> off making itself accessible no matter what screen reader is used.


That is why LibreOffice (like OpenOffice.org) needs to support 
accessibility APIs, keyboard access, desktop themes, etcetera. For a 
screen reader to work with an application, the application needs to 
implement the accessibility API (for example the Java Accessibility 
API, which is not tied to a specific operating system), and the 
screen reader needs to support that API. As far as I know, screen 
readers on Windows have generally weak support for the Java Accessibility API.

(Note: Java accessibility on Windows requires the Java Access Bridge. 
Oracle is working on a new version of this bridge that will be part 
of the Java Runtime Environment instead of a separate download.)

Best regards,

Christophe


> (...)
>
> Thanks.
>
> Alex M
>
> On 12/6/10, Octavian Rasnita <orasnita@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The same danger from the perspective of the blind computer users 
> also appear
> > in other EU countries where the governments prefer paying for 
> screen readers
> > made in EU, even though none of them are as good as JAWS.
> >
> > The governments don't care that just a few computer users need to use
> > complex applications like Visual Studio, Eclipse or even a simple text
> > editor like TextPad which is absolutely inaccessible with NVDA (or at least
> > it was inaccessible a few months ago).
> >
> > Octavian
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Christophe Strobbe" <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be>
> > To: <accessibility@libreoffice.org>
> > Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 8:59 PM
> > Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Laws and standards
> >
> >
> >> Hi Alex,
> >>
> >> At 18:53 6/12/2010, Alex Midence wrote:
> >>>(...)  I use Jaws and NVDA as my screen readers in
> >>>windows and Orca in Linux.
> >>
> >> It is good to hear that there are screen reader users on this list!
> >>
> >>
> >>>(...)  I am relieved to see mention of
> >>>closed source, non-free screen readers in this thread.  Believe it or
> >>>not, very few people in government agencies (at least the ones here in
> >>>Texas) with whom I have spoken have heard of NVDA. (...)
> >>
> >> Do you mean agencies that refund (in whole or in part) assistive
> >> technologies? It is true that these agencies are not always aware of
> >> free and open-source alternatives. This is also the case in Belgium,
> >> where I live.
> >> Informing these agencies about free and open-source assistive
> >> technologies is not without risk, unfortunately: they might just say,
> >> for example: "Now that free screen readers are available for Windows,
> >> we will stop refunding JAWS, Window-Eyes, Hal, Supernova, etctera",
> >> without checking if the free alternatives are good enough to replace
> >> the commercial ones.
> >> (I heard this from someone who provides technical advice to such an
> >> agency in Belgium.)
> >> For example, JAWS and Window-Eyes support language switching inside a
> >> document; free alternatives do not necessarily support this and
> >> require the user to switch the TTS language manually.
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >>
> >> Christophe
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Christophe Strobbe

--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/
Twitter: @RabelaisA11y
---
"Better products and services through end-user empowerment" 
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