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The Fundamentals of Accessibility

Consider this article your one-stop shop for all things IAccessible. Below is a summary of the most important topics under my accessibility category. Getting Started New to Accessibility? So was I three years ago. Get caught-up by reading my MSDN whitepaper Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 9:10 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

Testing for Accessibility: Keyboard, High Contrast, and Assistive Technology Compatibility

Consider this my testament as an Accessibility Tester. I am a Software Designer Engineer in Test on the Visual Studio Core Team. My team owns the critical aspects of the integrated shell, and I am responsible for the quality of the shell's Accessibility. Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:42 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

Watch Out for these Unpopular Accessibility Bugs

I attended a few get-togethers with some Assistive Technology vendors a while back when they were on campus for an Accessibility conference. While eating dinner with one particular AT vendor, I had asked him what we, Visual Studio , could do to improve Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:40 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

Questions and answers about AA-Naming your control

I’m often asked “What's the correct name for this control?” There are many variations to this question, for example: 1. Does this control need an AA name? 2. Do we change the AA name if a control’s caption or label changes? 3. Do we add the AA description Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:39 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

Normal, Unavailable, Offscreen, and Invisible AA States Explained

I'm often asked about the relationship among Normal (same as Visible), Unavailable, and Offscreen, and Invisible AA States. Here's my best guess at an explanation. What the docs say Starting with the MSAA SDK Docs on Object State Constants , the following Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:39 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

Usability and Accessibility - are they the same thing?

The more I study UI Consistency and improving the user experience, and the more feedback I hear from customers who use accessibility features, I'm really starting to wonder if Usability and Accessibility are really just two sides of the same coin? Yes, Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:38 PM by vsaccessibility | 1 Comments

Book Report on "Accessibility for Everybody: Understanding the Section 508 Accessibility Requirements"

There is a book out on the market for Accessibility called Accessibility For Everybody: Understanding the Section 508 Accessibility Requirements , a 500 page book written by John Paul Mueller and published by APress in 2003. Introduction A few months Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:37 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

"Testing for Accessibility" article moved to new location

My “Testing for Accessibility” article, also known internally as a “whitepaper”, is now found under UI Design and Development - Accessibility - Technical Articles at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnacc/html/accessibility_testing.asp . I'm working Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:34 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

What do you think about desktop customization?

Christopher Keroack, the Test Manager for the Windows Accessibility team, asked me if I could post the following: What do you think about desktop customization? This can either be out of necessity (e.g. making fonts bigger, making UI easier to click with Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:33 PM by vsaccessibility | 1 Comments

What does IAccessible::get_accKeyboardShortcut() return?

If you said, “A Control's Keyboard Shortcut”, that’s incorrect! I get asked this question from time to time, so I'm going to share the answer here. Let’s review a Keyboard Shortcut versus a Mnemonic. A mnemonic is a control’s underlined letter or its Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:31 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

Which MSAA Properties Get Localized?

Let me answer this with a story… it began with a question in my inbox I hadn’t seen before, “Are standard windows scrollbars over-localized on non-ENU OS?” A tester on my team had installed an English version of the product on a Japanese OS. He noticed Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:30 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

“Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key” does more than just hide underlined letters

You can find this control on the Display Properties – Appearance Tab – Effects dialog. It not only hides underlined letters, but also it can hide focus at certain times. If you’ve ever wondered why focus appears sometimes and it doesn’t appear at other Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:29 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

More on the "Hide Underlined Letters" Checkbox Issue

Check out Saurabh's post on the “hide underline letters” checkbox issue. If you've ever wondered, “How do I figure out when to paint focus rectangle and when to draw string with mnemonics underlined?” Saurabh has the answer for both managed and unmanaged Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:28 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

How to Retrieve Text Under the Mouse Cursor Using AA

Raymond Chen has a post with sample code on How to Retrieve Text under the cursor (mouse pointer) using MSAA. The code sample include how to call AccessibleObjectFromPoint, IAccessible::get_accName, and IAccessible::get_accValue. Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:27 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments

MsaaVerify - An Active Accessibility Testing Tool

Have you ever used AccExplorer or Inspect and wondered whether the information presented was correct? Have you ever wanted to know which controls really need Names, Keyboard Shortcuts, Descriptions, and so forth ? It's time to MsaaVerify! MsaaVerify will Read More...
Posted Monday, September 20, 2004 6:26 PM by vsaccessibility | 0 Comments
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