Overview
Like surgeons, software developers rely largely on tools for the successful execution of their jobs. In the not so distant past, they wrote out code by hand. However, the evolution of collaborative software tools, new programming languages, and managed code have changed the way developers work, increasing productivity and security, enhancing quality, and driving down the cost of software. In particular, the introduction of developer frameworks has reduced the complexity of application development, simplified deployment, and significantly decreased the time it takes to get new software to market.
Of course, tools to make development software and end-user applications actually usable and accessible to some 750 million people with disabilities worldwide is a different story altogether. Despite requirements outlined in legislation such as Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, accessibility is a relatively nascent concept in the software development practice. Yet, even for developers who have the desire and expertise to make their applications accessible, the tools have been lacking. As a company with a 94-year history of technology innovation for people with disabilities, IBM is looking to change all that.
Recently, IBM announced that it is contributing the Accessibility Tools Framework (ACTF) to the open-source community at Eclipse.org for ongoing development. ACTF is a collection of tools and building blocks that enable developers to validate and develop accessible desktop applications, and content authors to create accessible content. Examples of such applications and content include IBM Lotus Notes® 8 or Microsoft Internet Explorer® Web applications, basic shopping cart-based applications, and content using OpenDocument Format (ODF), PDF, and other popular document formats.
"ACTF is unique in that it brings together key inspection, compliance validation, and visualization tools for accessible content and application development in a way that's never been done before. It also provides building blocks that help developers more quickly and easily create their own accessibility-validation tools and assistive technologies," says Mike Strack, manager of advanced technology, IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center.
That's good news for developers who previously had to start essentially from scratch to create the accessibility tools and assistive technologies to develop applications that were actually usable by people with disabilities. It also has the potential to be very good news for people with disabilities, baby boomers, non-native language speakers, and novice technology users, all of whom benefit either directly or indirectly from accessible software and Web applications.
"Tools and frameworks like ACTF are a critical component of the development process," says Mike Squillace, an IBM software engineer who collaborated on the project with other IBM researchers in the U.S. and Tokyo. "Bottom line, if developers have the tools they need to create accessible content, they are more likely to actually use them, and that means everyday technology will be usable by a much wider range of people."
Specifically, ACTF helps developers in three key areas, compliance validation, visualization and development of accessibility-related tools and components.
- Compliance validation tools enable developers to see if the content they are creating meets worldwide standards for accessibility. Some automatic "fixes" for noncompliant code are currently included as part of ACTF, and continued development of these components is planned. However, the broad benefit of these tools is that they eliminate the need for developers to become experts in worldwide accessibility standards—such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) and accessibility-related features of ODF 1.1—while still ensuring usable content.
- Visualization tools create visual simulations of how people with low vision, colorblindness, and cataracts will see the content on screen and how blind people will hear it using a screen reader. ACTF then generates a report highlighting specific problem areas. This allows developers to not only see their content the way people with disabilities do, but also to more quickly identify areas that need revision, enabling them to implement fixes as necessary and appropriate.
- Building blocks provide the foundation to enable developers to create new assistive technologies or accessibility-validation tools, such as screen-reader simulators, without having to start from scratch. These building blocks save hours of development time and will likely lead to a host of new technology innovations for accessibility.
The framework also currently offers accessibility validation for Java Swing and Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) applications. IBM plans to provide enhanced developer support for Web content, ODF documents, and Web 2.0 and AJAX applications such as GoogleMaps or GoogleSearch in 2008. However, IBM also hopes that developers in the open source community will extend and enhance the framework for Web 2.0 compatibility.
By contributing ACTF to the open source community at Eclipse, IBM hopes to accelerate the development of new tools for accessible content creation and encourage developers to learn more about accessibility. "IBM is committed to providing developers with the tools and information they need to improve the usability of current and future software and other applications," said Frances West, director, IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center. "Contributing ACTF to Eclipse is an important step in generating awareness of accessibility and building a collaborative ecosystem to advance innovation."