Contents | Part A | Part B | References

W3C

Implementation Techniques for
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

Editor's Draft 6 March 2006

Editors:
Jutta Treviranus - ATRC, University of Toronto
Jan Richards - ATRC, University of Toronto
Tim Boland - NIST

Abstract

This document provides non-normative information to authoring tool developers who wish to satisfy the checkpoints of "Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" [ATAG20]. It includes suggested techniques, sample strategies in deployed tools, and references to other accessibility resources (such as platform-specific software accessibility guidelines) that provide additional information on how a tool may satisfy each ATAG 2.0 checkpoint.

This document is part of a series of accessibility documents published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Status of this document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

The AUWG intends to publish Implementation Techniques for ATAG 2.0 as a W3C Note.

The Working Group expects to update this document in response to queries raised by implementers of the Guidelines, for example to cover new technologies. Suggestions for additional techniques are welcome.

This document was produced under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. The Working Group maintains a public list of patent disclosures relevant to this document; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) with respect to this specification should disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

This document has been produced as part of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The goals of the AUWG are discussed in the Working Group charter. The AUWG is part of the WAI Technical Activity.


Introduction

This is the Implementation Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (ATAG 2.0). The guidelines provide a generic description of the requirements for authoring tools that are accessible to people with disabilities while the implementation techniques provide an interpretation of the guidelines as they apply to real tools. This interpretation represents the best thinking of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) and as such is a good guide to achieve conformance to ATAG 2.0. The Working Group encourages developers to implement these techniques where appropriate. However, these techniques do not provide a final definition of ATAG conformance and it is possible to meet guideline requirements without following these techniques. As new methods of conforming to the guidelines come to the attention of the Working Group, these techniques will be updated.

For illustrative purposes, the techniques document includes examples in the form of mock screenshots. While the examples have been chosen to be as informative as possible, many of them are specific to certain types of authoring tools (definitions for authoring tool functions). In order to assist developers in determining the relevance of the examples to the different categories, each example is marked with one or more of the following category icons (Note: Authoring tools may fall into one or more of the categories. For example, an HTML authoring tool that has both a text editor and a "browser" view will fall under two categories, Code-Level Authoring Functions and WYSIWYG Authoring Functions):

  1. Applicable to Code-Level authoring functions Code-level Authoring Functions
  2. Applicable to 'what you see is what you get' authoring functions WYSIWYG ("What-you-see-is-what-you-get") Authoring Functions
  3. Applicable to Object-Oriented authoring functions Object Oriented Authoring Functions
  4. Applicable to Indirect authoring functions Indirect Authoring Functions

@@Note: Techniques in this document are known to contain errors. Recommendations will be rendered obsolete by future drafts. The purpose of this document is to receive feedback about the content of the techniques to ensure that future drafts are more accurate and useful. These techniques should not be implemented by developers attempting to attain ATAG conformance at this time.


Implementation Techniques

PART A: Make the user interface accessible

Guideline A.1 Authoring Interface must be Perceivable

Guideline A.2: Authoring Interface must be Operable

Guideline A.3: Authoring Interface must be Understandable

Guideline A.4: Authoring Interface must be Access System Friendly

PART B: Support the production of accessible content

Guideline B.1: Enable the production of accessible content

Guideline B.2: Support the author in the production of accessible content

Guideline B.3: Promote and integrate accessibility solutions


Notes:


References

[AMAYA]
Amaya, developed at W3C, is both an authoring tool and browser with a WYSIWYG-style user interface. Amaya serves as a testbed for W3C specifications. Source code, binaries, and further information are available at http://www.w3.org/Amaya/. The techniques in this document are based on Amaya version 2.4.
[AMAYA-HELP-IMG]
"Images and Client-side Image Maps," Amaya's help page for images and image maps.
[AMAYA-SAMPLE]
"Amaya - Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 sample implementation" Describes how Amaya, W3C's WYSIWYG browser/authoring tool, satisfies version 1.0 of the guidelines.
[API-DESIGN]
"Accessibility requirements for systems design to accommodate users with vision impairments," P. Brunet, B. A. Feigenbaum, K. Harris, C. Laws, R. Schwerdtfeger, and L. Weiss, IBM Systems Journal.
[APPLE-ACCESS]
"Accessibility Documentation," Apple Computer Inc.
[APROMPT]
The A-prompt tool allows authors to check many accessibility features in HTML pages, and incorporates a mechanism to manage equivalent alternative information for images. The tool is built in such a way that the functions can be incorporated into an authoring tool. A-prompt was developed by the Adaptive Technology Resource Center at the University of Toronto, and the TRACE center at the University of Wisconsin and is freely available at http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca.
[ATAG10]
"Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0," J. Treviranus, C. McCathieNevile, I. Jacobs, and J. Richards, eds., 3 February 2000. This W3C reference is http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-ATAG10-20000203/.
[ATAG10-TECHS]
"Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0," J. Treviranus, C. McCathieNevile, J. Richards, and G. Rosmaita, eds., 29 October 2002. This W3C reference is http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-ATAG10-TECHS-20021029/.
[ATAG20]
"Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0," J. Treviranus, J. Richards, C. McCathieNevile, and M. May, eds. The latest version is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20. The latest version of ATAG 2.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20.
[AUTO-TOOL]
"Techniques For Accessibility Evaluation and Repair Tools," C. Ridpath and W. Chisholm, eds., 26 April 2000. This W3C reference is http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-AERT-20000426.
[CARBON-ACCESS]
"Introduction to Accessibility Programming Guidelines for Carbon," Apple Corporation.
[COCOA-ACCESS]
"Introduction to Accessibility Programming Guidelines for Cocoa," Apple Corporation.
[CSS1]
"CSS, level 1 Recommendation," B. Bos and H. Wium Lie, eds., 17 December 1996, revised 11 January 1999. This CSS1 Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-CSS1-19990111. The latest version of CSS1 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1. Note: CSS1 has been superseded by CSS2. Tools should implement the CSS2 cascade.
[CSS2]
"CSS, level 2 Recommendation," B. Bos, H. Wium Lie, C. Lilley, and I. Jacobs, eds., 12 May 1998. This CSS2 Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-19980512. The latest version of CSS2 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2.
[CSS2-ACCESS]
"Accessibility Features of CSS," I. Jacobs and J. Brewer, eds., 4 August 1999. This W3C Note is http://www.w3.org/1999/08/NOTE-CSS-access-19990804. The latest version of Accessibility Features of CSS is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS-access.
[ECLIPSE-ACCESS]
"Designing Accessible Plug-ins in Eclipse," T. Creasy, IBM OTI Labs.
[ECLIPSE-API]
"Eclipse Platform API"
[EDU-SOFT-ACCESS]
"Making Educational Software and Web Sites Accessible,". G. Freed, M. Rothberg and T. Wlodkowski, National Center for Accessible Media
[EITAAC]
"EITAAC Desktop Software standards," Electronic Information Technology Access Advisory (EITAAC) Committee.
[GNOME-ACCESS]
"GNOME Accessibility for Developers," C. Benson, B. Cameron, B. Haneman, S. Snider, P. O'Briain, The GNOME Accessibility Project.
[GNOME-API]
"Gnome Accessibility Toolkit API"
[GNOME-KDE-KEYS]
"Gnome/KDE Keyboard Shortcuts," Novell Corporation.
[HTML-XML-VALIDATOR]
The W3C HTML Validation Service validates HTML and XHTML markup.
[HTML4]
"HTML 4.01 Recommendation," D. Raggett, A. Le Hors, and I. Jacobs, eds., 24 December 1999. This HTML 4.01 Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224. The latest version of HTML 4 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/html4.
[HTML4-ACCESS]
"WAI Resources: HTML 4.0 Accessibility Improvements," I. Jacobs, J. Brewer, and D. Dardailler, eds. This document describes accessibility features in HTML 4.0.
[IBM-ACCESS]
"Software Accessibility," IBM Special Needs Systems.
[ICCCM]
"The Inter-Client communication conventions manual." A protocol for communication between clients in the X Window system.
[ISO-TS-16071]
"Ergonomics of human-system interaction -- Guidance on accessibility for human-computer interfaces". International Organization for Standardization.
[ICE-RAP]
"An ICE Rendezvous Mechanism for X Window System Clients," W. Walker. A description of how to use the ICE and RAP protocols for X Window clients.
[JAVA-ACCESS]
"IBM Guidelines for Writing Accessible Applications Using 100% Pure Java," R. Schwerdtfeger, IBM Special Needs Systems.
[JAVA-API]
" Java Accessibility Package"
[JAVA-CHECKLIST]
"Java Accessibility Guidelines and Checklist," IBM Special Needs Systems.
[JAVA-TUT]
"The Java Tutorial. Trail: Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing." An online tutorial that describes how to use the Swing Java Foundation Class to build an accessible User Interface.
[MACOSX-KEYS]
"Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts," Apple Corporation.
[MATHML]
"Mathematical Markup Language 1.01 (MathML)," P. Ion and R. Miner, eds., 7 April 1998, revised 7 July 1999. This MathML 1.0 Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/1999/07/REC-MathML-19990707. The latest version of MathML 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-MathML.
[MS-ENABLE]
"Accessibility for Applications Designers," Microsoft Corporation.
[MS-KEYS]
"Keyboard shortcuts for Windows," Microsoft Corporation.
 
[MSAA-API]
"Microsoft Active Accessibility," Microsoft Corporation.
[RDF10]
"Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification," O. Lassila, R. Swick, eds. The 22 February 1999 Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-rdf-syntax-19990222. The latest version of RDF 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax.
[RUBY]
"Ruby Annotation," M. Sawicki, M. Suignard, M. Ishikawa, and M. Dürst, eds. The 17 December 1999 Working Draft is http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-ruby-19991217. The latest version is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby.
[SEARCHABLE]
"A Comparison of Schemas for Dublin Core-based Video Metadata Representation," J Hunter.
[SMIL-ACCESS]
"Accessibility Features of SMIL," M.-R. Koivunen and I. Jacobs, eds. This W3C Note is http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/NOTE-SMIL-access-19990921. The latest version of Accessibility Features of SMIL is available at available at http://www.w3.org/TR/SMIL-access.
[SUN-DESIGN]
" Designing for Accessibility," Eric Bergman and Earl Johnson. This paper discusses specific disabilities including those related to hearing, vision, and cognitive function. @@The location of this document is now unknown@@.
[SUN-HCI]
" Towards Accessible Human-Computer Interaction," Eric Bergman, Earl Johnson, Sun Microsystems 1995. A substantial paper, with a valuable print bibliography. @@The location of this document is now unknown@@.
[SVG]
"Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.0 Specification (Working Draft)," J. Ferraiolo, ed. The latest version of the SVG specification is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG.
[SVG-ACCESS]
"Accessibility of Scalable Vector Graphics (Working Draft)," C. McCathieNevile, M.-R. Koivunen, eds. The latest version is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG-access.
[TRACE-REF]
"Application Software Design Guidelines," compiled by G. Vanderheiden. A thorough reference work.
[UAAG10]
"User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 ," I. Jacobs, J. Gunderson, E. Hansen, eds.
[UAAG10-TECHS]
"Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0," J. Gunderson and I. Jacobs, eds. The latest version of Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10-TECHS/.
[WAI-ER]
The Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group tracks and develops tools that can help repair accessibility errors.
[WCAG10]
"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0," W. Chisholm, G. Vanderheiden, and I. Jacobs, eds., 5 May 1999. This Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505. The latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/.
[WCAG10-TECHS]
"Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0," W. Chisholm, G. Vanderheiden, and I. Jacobs, eds. The latest version of Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/.
[WHAT-IS]
"What is Accessible Software," James W. Thatcher, Ph.D., IBM, 1997. This paper gives a short example-based introduction to the difference between software that is accessible, and software that can be used by some assistive technologies. @@The location of this document is now unknown@@.
[XHTML10]
"XHTML(TM) 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Working Draft)," S. Pemberton et al. The latest version of XHTML 1.0 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1.
[XML]
"The Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0," T. Bray, J. Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, eds., 10 February 1998. This XML 1.0 Recommendation is http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210. The latest version of the XML specification is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml.
[XMLGL]
"XML Accessibility Guidelines (Draft Note)," D. Dardailler, ed. Draft notes for producing accessible XML document types. The latest version of the XML Accessibility Guidelines is available at http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/xmlgl.

Acknowledgments

The active participants of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group who authored this document were: Tim Boland (National Institute for Standards and Technology), Barry A. Feigenbaum (IBM), Karen Mardahl (STC), Matt May (Team Contact, W3C), Greg Pisocky (Adobe), Jan Richards (Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto), Roberto Scano (IWA/HWG), and Jutta Treviranus (Chair of the working group, Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto)

Many thanks to the following people who have contributed to the AUWG through review and comment: Kynn Bartlett, Giorgio Brajnik, Judy Brewer, Wendy Chisholm, Daniel Dardailler, Geoff Deering, Katie Haritos-Shea, Kip Harris, Phill Jenkins, Len Kasday, Marjolein Katsma, William Loughborough, Charles McCathieNevile, Matthias Müller-Prove, Liddy Nevile, Graham Oliver, Wendy Porch, Bob Regan, Chris Ridpath, Gregory Rosmaita, Heather Swayne, Gregg Vanderheiden, Carlos Velasco, and Jason White.

This document would not have been possible without the work of those who contributed to ATAG 1.0.

This publication has been funded in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education under contract number ED05CO0039. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.


Contents | Part A | Part B | References