[PHOTO/CAPTION: Curtis Chong]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Curtis Chong]

Braille Monitor

December

2004

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Accessibility

to Microsoft Products

by Curtis Chong

Curtis Chong

From the President:

In early September, I asked Curtis Chong and Ann Taylor to participate in a

meeting with developers of technology at the Microsoft Corporation. As Federationists

know, Mr. Chong serves as an assistant director of the Iowa Department for the

Blind, and Ann Taylor is the manager of the International Braille and Technology

Center of the National Federation of the Blind. When our representatives returned

from the meeting, Mr. Chong sent me a summary of the events that occurred while

he and Mrs. Taylor were in Redmond, Washington. Because we are reporting on

the current state of technology for the blind, the report is particularly relevant.

Here is what Mr. Chong wrote:

Des Moines, Iowa

September

13, 2004

Dr. Marc Maurer, President

National Federation of the Blind

Baltimore, Maryland

Dear Dr. Maurer:

On September 7 and 8, 2004,

Ann Taylor and I met with representatives from the Microsoft Corporation at

its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to discuss nonvisual access to the

Microsoft Windows operating system and other Microsoft applications such as

Office, Money, Terminal Server, and Internet Explorer. Overall the two-day meeting

turned out to be a fruitful exchange of views and information between the National

Federation of the Blind and Microsoft. As we have done in the past, we communicated

our determination as blind people to have access to the applications we need

to pursue our personal and career objectives; and our belief that a great deal

of Microsoft's accessibility effort depends upon negotiation, persuasion, and

cooperative relationships between its many and varied product groups was reaffirmed.

The

Accessibility Technology Group

The Accessibility

Technology Group (dubbed ATG within Microsoft) lies at the heart of Microsoft's

accessibility efforts. The head of this group is Madelyn Bryant-McIntire. Ms.

Bryant-McIntire has a strong engineering background and tends to address issues

in technical as opposed to political or emotional terms. Microsoft employees

who are actual members of the ATG seem to have a solid grasp of the requirements

for accessibility and a strong commitment to making things accessible whenever

and wherever possible. However, the ATG does not have any veto power over the

release of specific software at Microsoft. Rather its strength lies in its ability

to evangelize the need for accessibility with various product groups and to

ensure that within each group there exists an accessibility champion, who can

continuously promote the cause of accessibility as work on a specific product

moves forward.

During our two days of

meetings, we met with accessibility champions from a number of different product

groups, and it was very clear that the overall goal of full accessibility to

all Microsoft products has been and continues to be difficult to achieve--with

mixed results across the various groups. Accordingly it is difficult to comprehend

how accessibility is being mandated at the highest levels of the corporation.

Windows

Longhorn

Madelyn Bryant-McIntire

provided a briefing concerning Longhorn, the next version of the Windows operating

system. About ten years ago Microsoft began work on something called Microsoft

Active Accessibility (MSAA), which was supposed to provide a robust mechanism

for Windows applications to communicate with assistive technology--including

screen-access technology for the blind. As it turns out, MSAA has been plagued

with a few nontrivial problems. It is difficult for software developers to learn

and implement, it does not provide all of the information that screen access

programs need, and it has been used effectively in only a few significant applications

such as Internet Explorer, Macromedia Flash, and the Adobe Reader.

According to Ms. Bryant-McIntire

MSAA provides only about 20 percent of the information that screen access programs

need to enable a blind computer user to use Windows applications effectively.

Screen access programs grab the rest of the information they need with hooks

which at best are unsupported and at worst unstable and unreliable. It is this

latter mechanism that has been the cause for much of the instability that exists

between Windows and screen access technology today.

Moreover, according to

Ms. Bryant-McIntire, since the screen access technology vendors do not want

to reveal proprietary trade secrets to Microsoft, Microsoft does not know how

to protect the interfaces that are already working for specific screen access

programs. The bottom line is that there is no compelling reason for developers

to use MSAA, and screen access technology has used MSAA only for a small number

of applications. What is needed is an approach which is easy to implement and

irresistible to developers.

Microsoft is now promoting

a new protocol variously called User Interface Automation or Test Automation.

The idea here is to provide a programmatic way for software to be accessed so

that such critical processes as software testing and validation can be accomplished

without human intervention. As I understand it, this should allow one program

to communicate with another program as if the second program were being controlled

by a human--meaning full access to the keyboard, mouse, and video display. From

a mainstream software development perspective, this is very desirable because

it could enable lots of testing to occur automatically. Also as a natural consequence

screen access technology should then be able to use this same interface to glean

what information it needs. To sweeten the pot, Microsoft is proposing to use

C Sharp as the implementation tool. Apparently C Sharp is easy to implement.

There has been a lot of

uncertainty around this new concept. For one thing, screen access technology

developers do not want to give up the proprietary (and very secret) approaches

they have used to grab information from Windows. For another, no one knows for

sure how this new concept will be implemented in Longhorn. Will Microsoft remove

support for MSAA and the video hooks that screen access technology has come

to rely on in favor of User Interface Automation? Or will it enable all of these

components to work together?

At some point in the future

it is clear that screen access software will need to be rewritten to take advantage

of the new protocol, but in the meantime we were assured that when Longhorn

is released, all three protocols will continue to be supported: the low-level

hooks that screen access technology uses today, MSAA, and User Interface Automation.

However, the writing is clearly on the wall. Microsoft intends to make a sweeping

change, and at some point in the future the low-level hooks will go away.

Windows

Narrator

Microsoft intends

to enhance its Windows Narrator program to work with Longhorn. Narrator is a

very basic speech program which is technically not a screen access program.

Rather it is designed to receive information from various Windows components

using either MSAA or UI Automation. Ms. Bryant-McIntire stated that Narrator

is not intended to compete with existing screen access technology, which can

distinguish itself by providing functions that increase user efficiency and

access to important information.

When Narrator was first

discussed way back in 1998, the screen access vendors were very nervous about

it. However, over time Narrator has not proven to be a serious competitor in

this market. As Microsoft has said, it provides very basic (and often not very

desirable) speech access to some Windows functions. Under Longhorn, Narrator

is intended to validate the concept behind User Interface Automation.

Internet

Explorer

Aaron Solvet, who

is with the Internet Explorer group, discussed accessibility efforts being conducted

by his team. I think this was more of a learning session for him than for us.

We explained that for the blind Internet Explorer was accessible only because

its interface had been effectively rewritten by screen access software to resemble

that of a word processor. We encouraged Mr. Solvet not to make any changes to

Internet Explorer which would damage this interface, and we encouraged him to

consider adding features to the browser which would enable the blind to have

the kind of interface they needed without as much reliance on screen access

software.

Microsoft

Voice Command

We next heard from

David Norris, who is the product unit manager for a product called Microsoft

Voice Command. This software provides a "hands busy, eyes busy" spoken

language interface to a number of pocket PC applications. It can be purchased

from such mainstream outlets as Circuit City or CompUSA for around $35. You

give it a few voice commands, and in some cases responses are spoken back to

you. For example, you can say, "Tell me my next appointment," and

the software will tell you that your next meeting is in twenty-seven minutes.

You say, "Run calendar," and your calendar is displayed on the pocket

PC's small video display (but not spoken).

Mrs. Taylor and I demonstrated

to Mr. Norris that, for the blind, the software is still not fully accessible,

and we urged him to continue adding more speech output functions. We also asked

him if he would be willing to have Voice Command evaluated for nonvisual access

by the staff of the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind.

He indicated that he was definitely interested.

Microsoft

Money

Access by the blind

to Microsoft Money was the first topic of discussion on the second day of our

meeting with Microsoft. We met with Beth Woodman, who promotes accessibility

with the Money group. Ms. Woodman indicated that she was the first person in

the Money group actively to work on accessibility issues pertaining to the Microsoft

Money software--both the Windows client and the Web site presence. Accordingly,

while earlier versions of Money may have worked somewhat for the blind, Ms.

Woodman reported that according to a blind Microsoft employee who tested the

latest version (Kelly Ford), accessibility had taken a step backward. Ms. Woodman

indicated that accessibility seems to be an uphill battle in securing necessary

time and resources. Nevertheless, she indicated that plans are well under way

to incorporate User Interface Automation into future versions of the Money product.

My guess is that Microsoft continues to give priority to accessibility issues

related to software that it believes to be important for employment. In this

context Microsoft Money comes in second.

We also discussed with

Ms. Woodman the financial services available through Microsoft on the Web. We

expressed our strong desire for the Web-based application to meet all accessibility

requirements so that everyone--including blind people using screen access technology--could

use it. She indicated a willingness to work with the National Federation of

the Blind in this regard.

Microsoft

Terminal Server

We next heard from

Emelda Kirby, who works in the Terminal Server group. The Microsoft Terminal

Server is the platform that runs software such as Citrix Metaframe. Citrix Metaframe

provides a mechanism to access a Windows machine remotely without having to

run all of the application software on your local computer. The local computer

runs the Citrix client and through the client communicates with a remote computer

which is actually the Terminal Server platform.

So far Citrix has been

inaccessible to the blind despite the best efforts of all screen access technology

vendors. It was heartening to hear from Ms. Kirby that accessibility is a major

priority for the Terminal Server group. Of course it helps that some government

agencies, such as the U.S. Post Office and the Social Security Administration,

eager to comply with Section 508, are prepared to invest time and money to try

to achieve accessibility to the Terminal Server platform and, by extension,

to Citrix Metaframe.

All of the major screen

access vendors (Dolphin, GW Micro, and Freedom Scientific) have plans to take

advantage of the accessibility work being done by the Terminal Server group.

Unfortunately this work will probably not bear fruit until the middle of 2005,

and then only if everything goes according to plan. According to Ms. Kirby the

Terminal Server group is committed to using User Interface Automation to accomplish

its goal of accessibility.

Mrs. Taylor urged the Terminal

Server group to avail itself of the expertise in nonvisual access available

at the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind. Ms. Kirby

seemed positively disposed to doing this.

Microsoft

Office

A discussion of accessibility

to Microsoft Office (both current and future versions) was the final topic of

discussion, and since Office is used by just about every blind computer user

today, we spent more time on this topic than on any other. We met with four

representatives from the Office group. Mrs. Taylor and I began by pointing out

that even under the best of circumstances accessibility problems still exist

today with various Office products. In fact, we pointed out that with respect

to Office 2003, the currently available version, full support was not yet available

from all of the screen access programs. We expressed frustration with the continuing

cycle of software releases by Microsoft which force screen access vendors to

jump through hoops to keep up.

We were told that the Office

group is aware of this problem. We also learned that by the time a particular

build of Office is ready to be tested for accessibility, many things are already

cast in stone, making it next to impossible to fix problems encountered during

the testing process. We asked if it would not be possible for the National Federation

of the Blind to become involved earlier in the testing process. We were told

that lawyers needed to be consulted about this question.

We had some very useful

discussions about what does and does not work for a typical blind user of Microsoft

Word and Outlook. We told the Office group representatives that Microsoft Access

(a database program) is still a fairly significant problem for blind users.

We observed that Office 2003 represented a step forward in better access to

some functions through the keyboard and informed the group that Office 2003

was not yet fully certified by the screen access vendors. We urged the Office

group to speed up its efforts to implement User Interface Automation and to

try to come up with creative ways to involve screen access vendors and blind

consumers earlier in the testing process.

General

Impressions

Overall I think the

meeting with Microsoft went as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

Representatives of some of the product groups heard from real live blind consumers

and may have received insights that they never had before. We, on the other

hand, learned something about how accessibility is handled at Microsoft—that

is, it is still not truly a corporate mandate but rather something which various

groups must be persuaded to incorporate into their product development cycles.

During our various meetings

we continually urged Madelyn Bryant-McIntire to visit the Jernigan Institute

and to have another meeting with the president of the National Federation of

the Blind. Now that the Institute is a going concern, we said that opportunities

for cooperative research involving the Federation and Microsoft were highly

desirable. Ms. Bryant-McIntire expressed her willingness to come to Baltimore

in the near future to see the Institute and to meet with the president.

As for the future, I am

afraid that things will get worse before they get better. The User Interface

Automation idea is a good one, and even though it will require some major software

changes on everyone's part, once we get through the painful transition process,

things should be more stable and functional in the long run. Of course we should

remember that, when MSAA was first conceived, we were assured that it would

solve many of our accessibility problems. Since it obviously did not, why should

we feel any differently about the new protocol which Microsoft is now actively

promoting? Perhaps I am being overly optimistic here. Only time will tell.

Yours sincerely,

Curtis Chong, President

National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science

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