System settings for font, size and color

Inherit system settings for font, size, and color for all user interface controls.

Someone with a vision disability who has difficulty reading small text or text that does not have sufficient background contrast can use display settings available through the operating system to make information on the screen more accessible. These settings allow users to modify display settings to make software accessible without purchasing additional hardware and software. On the Windows platform, users can customize font, size and color settings to meet their specific needs. Software must support the system settings the user has defined in order to meet this checkpoint. Software can use custom settings for displaying content, but this checkpoint requires the software to provide an option that enables users to choose their system settings for displaying information rather than custom settings provided by the software.

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The following techniques are the minimum required to meet Checkpoint 4.5 from the IBM Software Accessibility Checklist:

• Most standard Windows interface controls respect the system font, color and size settings, however, some controls do not inherit those settings. For a list of controls that inherit system settings on Windows, go to the Control Panel and then choose Display - Appearance - Item. The controls listed under Item such as Title Bar, Background and Menu will inherit system settings. Items that are not listed, such as text in standard Windows dialog boxes, will not inherit the system settings. It is not an accessibility failure when those items like text in standard Windows dialog boxes do not inherit system settings because there is no support to inherit them in Windows.
• In Eclipse let SWT do the work using the operating system settings. Widgets are always created with the correct default font for the class of user-interface component they represent. This font can be queried using org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.getSystemFont().
• Windows applications that draw their own screen elements should use the settings that the user has selected in the Display settings of the Control Panel.

The techniques above are required; The following techniques are recommended to enhance accessibility:

• Provide a magnification option in the View menu to allow flexible choice of enlarged text. Compare with Microsoft Word or Lotus 123. The size of text and graphics affects usability as well as accessibility. Many individuals who do not consider themselves to be disabled want to "view" a document or an application work area in an enlarged font while not affecting the actual document or work. For individuals with acknowledged visual impairments, the ability to magnify the application work area to 150%, 200% or greater may make the difference between being able to use the application or not. The vast majority of individuals who need this kind of access do not use screen magnifiers.
• Magnification features scale everything in the document to a user-selected ratio. Use of the TrueType scalable font technology ensures that characters will remain clearly defined at almost any size.
• If possible, allow the user to choose the draft font and size. Draft mode provides an option to display all text in a single font and size. Use underlining or a similar form of highlighting to indicate text that should be drawn with special formatting, such as bold or italics. (Draft mode also improves performance when running on slow systems or with little free memory.)
• Wrap to window options are helpful when displaying text documents. When the user chooses this option, the application should not break lines on the screen as they would appear on the printed page, but instead reflow each paragraph to fit the window.
• Scale the window size or provide the ability to scroll the window to ensure that as the font size is changed all of the information fits in the window or can be made visible and interactive through scrolling.

Tools

There are no tools required to test this checkpoint.

Techniques

The following techniques are required to verify this checkpoint: