Microsoft Longhorn Accessibility Features

The planned 2006 release of the next version of Windows, codenamed “Longhor,” will affect enormous numbers of computer owners. But for people with disabilities, it is of particular interest - a chance for Microsoft to build in some new accessibility features to the world’s leading operating system, which will make their lives easier and shift the accessibility agenda further into the mainstream.

An exclusive interview with Rob Haverty of Microsoft’s Accessible Technology Group, who was in Europe last month to promote this agenda, met with E-Access Bulletin to explain more.

Formerly focused on product development, Haverty is now responsible for promoting the accessibility agenda within Microsoft. In this capacity he is also tasked with building links with assistive technology developers and other relevant interest groups.

Taking the user’s perspective has always been a feature of his work, he says. “Before I moved into accessibility, I worked in software test engineering, so I’ve always been focused on the needs of the user,” he says. A major reason for Haverty’s visit to Europe was to meet with Microsoft’s research teams, and help co-ordinate the company’s response to new EU legislation.

“In the US, [the anti-discrimination law] Section 508 gave a strong focus to our work on accessibility, and we’re now seeing similar legislation coming into effect here. Our strategy must take account of European legislation,” he says. Another driving force is the much-discussed aging population issue, seen across the industrialized world.

“A study carried out in 2003 showed that of adults aged between 18 and 64 in the US, 17% were very likely to benefit from accessible technology, and 40% were likely to benefit,” he says. All of which means that accessibility is high on the Microsoft agenda.

So does that mean that Longhorn will boast the kind of text to speech facilities found in “Tiger,” the latest Apple operating system (see story 02, this issue)? The short answer is no, because it doesn’t fit the Microsoft strategy, Haverty says. The company is keen to draw a distinction between areas where specialist assistive technology developers can make their contribution, and developing products with a degree of accessibility built in. “If Microsoft decided to move into assistive technology, many of these specialist developers would go out of business quite quickly, and we don’t want to do that,” he says.

So Longhorn will include a text-to-speech engine similar to that found in Narrator, the product currently integrated into XP, he says. Compared with screen readers such as Jaws, Narrator can seem quite basic, but Haverty warns against simple comparisons. “It’s unhelpful to think of Narrator as a screen reader, it can create confusion,” he says.

Microsoft is keen to see accessibility in a wider context. “We’re moving away from thinking about accessibility as a niche thing towards making computers easier to use generally,” he says.

Along with the text-to-speech engine found in Narrator, Longhorn will also inherit the magnification, on-screen keyboard and sticky key functionality found in Windows XP. So far, so familiar, but where Longhorn will differ is in the way it learns about user preferences and in the tools available to assistive technology developers. There will be less need to dig through layers of menus to change settings, says Haverty. Instead, new users will be prompted to tell Longhorn something about themselves when they first use the machine, and the system will track user behavior afterwards, suggesting options when appropriate.

But the most important development with Longhorn will undoubtedly be its interface for developers, containing the “hooks” needed to link text and rich media output with devices such as screen readers. The old interface, Microsoft Active Accessibility (MAA) proved difficult to use for many developers, and is to be scrapped. In its place will come User Interface (UI) automation? This aims to provide a clear and consistent route for developers to access information such as where a button is located on a screen, what text is displayed with it, and what the button does, for example. User controls and displays such as these are stored as objects and properties, all linked together in a single tree structure.

According to Haverty, the new UI tools should provide developers with easier access and more power to tailor interactions to the needs of users. “Our concern is that in the past, assistive technology vendors spent too much time trying to find the information they need rather than on developing products. We hope Longhorn will change that.”

Source: E-Access Bulletin. This article was reprinted with permission from E-Access Bulletin, a free monthly email newsletter on access to technology by blind and vision-impaired people. To subscribe see www.headstar.com/eab