A METHOD PROPOSAL FOR IMPLEMENTING

ACCESSIBILITY IN DESKTOP APPLICATIONS

FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS

Livia Cristina Gabos Martins and Bruno Elias Penteado

MStech, Bauru, Brazil

Keywords: Accessibility, Flash, Desktop applications, WCAG.

Abstract: Currently, little is said about the accessibility-oriented desktop applications. In the case of this study,

problems related to the application structure, which has characteristics of a legacy software, brings

challenges that hinder the implementation of accessibility. This article shows an implementation of

accessibility by applying the concepts of web standards in desktop applications, addressing factors such as

controlling the events of Flash components to make data accessible to screen readers and communication

between the layers of user interface and business taking into account information accessibility through the

use of technology MSAA.

1 INTRODUCTION

In general, accessibility can be understood by

removing the barriers which prevents disabled

people to participate in activities of a social context,

including services, products and information

(Santarosa, L. M. C. et al., 2007). In a digital

context, accessibility means that people with

different kinds of disabilities can understand, browse

and interact with the web as well as with other

people, benefiting even those without any disability

(W3C, 2005).

The use of standards for developing accessible

applications emerged in 1997 with the creation of

HTML 4.0 (W3C, 1997) by W3C (World Wide Web

Consortium) - the international community where

associated organizations work together to develop

standards for the Web. In this version of HTML

some elements were introduced which facilitated the

distinction between structure and presentation of the

document. There was also improvement in the

semantics of documents, the addition of medias to

content formatting via the cascading style sheets

(CSS) towards Braille, among others.

Aimed at accessible Web development, the WAI

(Web Accessibility Initiative), a division of W3C,

established a standard known as WCAG 1.0 (Web

Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0) (W3C, 1999)

for Web developers and designers This standard

defines techniques so that people with disabilities,

such as inability to see, hear, or move properly -

named visually, hearing and motor impaired,

respectively - can read and understand the

information available on the Internet.

Another standard established for this purpose

was the WAI-ARIA (Web Acessibility Initiative -

Accessible Rich Internet Applications) (W3C, 2008)

created to establish specifications of accessibility for

Web applications using Ajax, HTML, JavaScript

and other related technologies in its composition -

also known as rich Internet applications.

The standards described are meant to help the

communication with assistive technologies. This

term is used to identify resources and services that

contribute to provide or increase the functional

abilities of people with various types of impairments

(Sonza, 2008). As examples such resources, we can

highlight: the screen readers and magnifiers, much

used by the visually impaired; speech recognizers,

used to trigger commands by voice; data input

devices, as alternative to the keyboard and mouse;

among others.

Currently, to our knowledge, there is not a

specific standard for implementing accessibility for

desktop applications. We can find some studies on

best practices and observations to this issue (IBM

Corporation, 2009; The University of Wisconsin,

1997), but none declared as official. In general,

287

Gabos Martins L. and Elias Penteado B..

A METHOD PROPOSAL FOR IMPLEMENTING ACCESSIBILITY IN DESKTOP APPLICATIONS FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS.

DOI: 10.5220/0003495702870290

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2011), pages 287-290

ISBN: 978-989-8425-56-0

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

utility tools are used - the built-in assistive

technologies in operating systems, with no

equivalent standard for the Web.

According to the World Health Organization

(WHO) (WHO, 2009) about 314 million people

worldwide are visually impaired, of which 45

million are blind. In Brazil, according to the IBGE

(Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics),

16.6 million people have some degree of visual

impairment, with almost 150 thousand people

reported blind (IBGE, 2005).

According to Filho (2005), the visually impaired

are very prejudiced by the lack of accessibility on

the Web because, most of the time, it is one of the

few ways they obtain information. Hence the

importance of ensuring accessibility, not only to the

Web, but also to the desktop applications that

provides access to such information, sometimes even

getting information from the Web.

The problem to be addressed in this case study is

related to the use of a desktop application for

visually impaired people, using techniques and

standards originally established for Web applications

and its application in a legacy software.

2 SOFTWARE AND METHOD

The software used in this case study is blueControl,

created by the technology company MStech

(MStech, 2011). This is an application for computer

labs in schools, widely used in educational programs

in Brazil, responsible for managing (from the

computer of the technician responsible for the lab)

the access to computers for students or community

members who use the school computers. With

blueControl, one can provide access for use of lab

computers, block inappropriate software or websites,

print documents, report of events and use of

computers, among other features. It is usually

operated by a technician who manages all computers

connected to that network and where they can

perform the functions described above.

The blueControl is commonly used in

educational programs that provide access to

computer labs for classes, training and access to the

general public. The technicians responsible for the

school’s or institution’s labs are trained to use the

application in their jobs, such as how to turn on

computers in a room for a class. Impaired people are

hired by the government obeying the Brazilian Law

8213/91, also known as Law of Quota, which

guarantees a percentage of employment for impaired

people.

The inability to use the blueControl software for

the visually impaired entails the exclusion of these

people from everyday activities such as the

management of computer laboratories, usually

waiting for a resolution of the problem with the help

of others.

The use of this tool, as originally designed, in

day-to-day laboratory showed that most of its

features did not meet the needs of visually impaired

people responsible for the laboratory, demanding a

redesign of its user interface.

However, being an application also used by

people who have not visual impairment and being

also widely marketed, with manuals created and

distributed, one of the assumptions in the redesign of

the application was that its interface could not be

changed abruptly to meet the accessibility need.

When the blueControl software was firstly

designed, it was not pondered the possibility of

making it accessible for the visually impaired

people. Therefore, problems were faced by the

development team to adapt it.

The blueControl application was implemented in

three layers, using the C# language, the .Net

Framework 2.0 in the layers of business logic and

persistence to the database – Microsoft SQL Server

2005. The interface layer was implemented using

Flash Action Script 2.0 technology.

Normally, when best practices are applied in the

development of accessible websites using Flash

technology, screen readers can identify the website

information, due to MSAA technology (Microsoft

Active Accessibility) (Microsoft, 2000). MSAA is a

technology based on COM (Component Object

Model), which enables communication between

applications and operating system and exists only on

Windows.

So that the interface could represent the state of

the inner logic an additional messaging service layer

was created. The messaging service layer helps

assistive technology interact with the operating

system. Due to this, browsers can send the

information, if any, for screen readers. As

blueControl was designed to run only on Windows,

a new service layer was created, to capture the

interface information and make it available to

assistive technology MSAA.

As the business layer was developed in C#, the

function of this new service layer is to pass the

accessibility information from Flash user interface to

the operating system, through MSAA, where screen

readers can identify the information (Figure 1).

To improve the user experience in using

blueControl, it was added a button that takes the

ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

288

user to a help screen about the accessibility

implemented. On this screen the user finds all

information on how to operate blueControl by using

the shortcut keys.

The development team followed the WCAG 1.0

standard for the modifications. This standard is

divided in three levels of priorities, namely: i)

Priority 1 - should be fully satisfied, ii) Priority 2 -

should be met and iii) Priority 3 - can be met. In this

study, the three levels have been met, while

respecting the differences in concepts and

procedures between web and desktop.

Figure 1: Diagram of communication.

Thus, our method to enable accessibility in

desktop applications consists in the observance of

WCAG guidelines for desktop applications along

with the new service layer to help the

communication with assistive technologies.

3 METHOD EVALUATION

A small group of 3 people was selected to

preliminarily assess the blueControl application. The

group was restricted to visually impaired people, due

to the focus of this study. They were classified

according to the WHO definition regarding

blindness and low vision (WHO and DIMDI, 2007).

In this study we used the environment DOSVOX

(Borges, 2002) as assistive technology for testing. It

is a system only for Windows, which communicates

with the user via speech synthesis, enabling the use

of computers by the visually impaired. It is

considered an environment and not just a screen

reader, due to the many features it has and by letting

the user not navigate by operating system directly.

DOSVOX was chosen because it is a free

environment, widely used and distributed in

government programs in Brazil and has a good

support for Flash on desktop environment.

Another popular tools of assistive technology,

such NVDA and JAWS were not used in this case

study, since they were not distributed along with

blueControl. Thus, we used DOSVOX for

standardization of testing. Besides, for the tests with

blueControl a group who had training on its usage

was selected, providing equal knowledge in the

assessment.

In possession of the new software version, with

the changes implementing accessibility features,

users of the selected group were instructed to

perform their tasks as taught in their training for the

management activities of the laboratory.

After applying the suggested method in the user

interface redesign, the selected users were able to

perform their regular tasks. During the first use,

some delay was caused at first experience, as they

get accustomed to the software and its layout.

Further interactions with the software showed

natural to their experience, as they had previous

experience with screen readers.

There were some drawbacks though, in the

implementation: some components, like Calendar,

needed an alternative input, since it could not

provide direct access to the information needed (e.g.

a specific day in the future), making it difficult to

handle and time consuming to use it often. The

DataGrid component, used to display a table of

records, came up as a problem too. An alternative

and simplified version, merging the columns into a

single one was used. Also, the excess of explaining

texts in some forms made difficult the fluent

execution of some tasks. The broad solution to these

components was a proper navigation by keyboard.

Though the implementation had some issues, the

basic concepts of WCAG were met properly, with

minor adjustments.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Currently, little is disseminated on the issue of

accessibility in software, although the standards or

even the law regarding accessibility. Usually the

topic is bound to the development of Web

applications.

Although there is not a specific standard to the

implementation of accessibility in a desktop

application, this case study demonstrated the

A METHOD PROPOSAL FOR IMPLEMENTING ACCESSIBILITY IN DESKTOP APPLICATIONS FOR VISUALLY

IMPAIRED USERS

289

technical feasibility of implementing the concepts of

web accessibility in a desktop application using only

different methods of implementation, regarding

desktop specificities, which was possible due to the

similarity of elements and features.

Although there are some points where Flash

technology does not allow an implementation of

accessibility in a less laborious way, it is an

interesting technology for use in desktop

applications, since it offers the possibility of creating

richer interfaces.

With the adjustments implemented in this case

study it was possible to adapt a legacy desktop

application, already in market, to meet the

accessibility levels set for Web applications,

ensuring adherence to laws and inclusion of visually

impaired users in their everyday work.

Though this work has only used one screen

reader, DOSVOX, other tools from the most popular

screen readers must be tested to assess the

comprehensiveness of this approach.

As an ongoing project, we have as a next step the

application of surveys, based on WCAG

recommendations, to the visually impaired who

work on a daily basis with blueControl so that we

can evaluate what are the achievements of our

approach. In future, it could be extended to other

types of disabilities such as motor impairment.

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