UIA Viewer Tool
The UIA Viewer, is a tool to help show what a screen reader can see. UIA (User Interface Automation) is the latest accessibility technology that Microsoft has created as part of Windows Vista (the next version of Windows). Thankfully, Microsoft has also made the technology backwards compatible for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. So the UIA Viewer tool uses this technology to show what a screen reader can see. In order to accomplish that task, the UIA Viewer uses the information to reconstruct the user interface.
For example: The current window I am using to write this blog entry has a drop down list to choose the blog, a label and textbox to enter the title, a toolbar to choose formating options, a large text box to type in the text of the blog and 2 buttons to either save this as a draft or publish the post. All of this is being displayed to the screen in Firefox using various fonts and graphics. If I were to open this window in Internet Explorer, it might look a little different. And if this were a windows application instead of an html form, it would look very different.
The UIA Viewer takes all the information about this window and recreates it in a standard way that simulates how a screen reader would read the screen. Instead of displaying the graphics, it displays the tooltip for each, like Bold, Italics, Colors, etc. as a text button.
Right now, we are in the process of implementing this tool. At this point every user interface element is reconstructed as a text box. However, as we improve it, each element will more closely resemble its original.
Although, the tool is not self-voicing, it is accessible for a screeen reader to use. In fact there are three of us working together and we have an intersting diversity. One is sighted, one uses Jaws a screen reader, and one uses ZoomText a screen magnifier. A great mix for both testing and brainstorming.
This tool will be open source, but right now it is more in a prototype stage. Come back or sign up to the RSS feed to hear about the progress of the UIA Viewer.
For example: The current window I am using to write this blog entry has a drop down list to choose the blog, a label and textbox to enter the title, a toolbar to choose formating options, a large text box to type in the text of the blog and 2 buttons to either save this as a draft or publish the post. All of this is being displayed to the screen in Firefox using various fonts and graphics. If I were to open this window in Internet Explorer, it might look a little different. And if this were a windows application instead of an html form, it would look very different.
The UIA Viewer takes all the information about this window and recreates it in a standard way that simulates how a screen reader would read the screen. Instead of displaying the graphics, it displays the tooltip for each, like Bold, Italics, Colors, etc. as a text button.
Right now, we are in the process of implementing this tool. At this point every user interface element is reconstructed as a text box. However, as we improve it, each element will more closely resemble its original.
Although, the tool is not self-voicing, it is accessible for a screeen reader to use. In fact there are three of us working together and we have an intersting diversity. One is sighted, one uses Jaws a screen reader, and one uses ZoomText a screen magnifier. A great mix for both testing and brainstorming.
This tool will be open source, but right now it is more in a prototype stage. Come back or sign up to the RSS feed to hear about the progress of the UIA Viewer.
posted by Rick at 10:23 AM
1 Comments:
I'm interested in your progress on this tool. How is it coming?
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