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Section 508 Compliance - How IST's Accessibility Solution is Compliant


The following points match the relevant parts of Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act against the IST's Motif Accessibility Solution. The relevant section is Part 1194 Subpart B - Technical Standards paragraph 1194.21.
  1. When software is designed to run on a system that has a keyboard, product functions shall be executable from a keyboard where the function itself or the result of performing a function can be discerned textually.

    The majority of the applications being targeted by IST's Motif Accessibility Solution have been designed for a system with a keyboard. IST's Motif Accessibility Solution offers the ability to specify mnemonics and accelerators for all widgets. This gives the user direct keyboard navigation. Users could also specify tab groups in order to facilitate general keyboard navigation.

  2. Applications shall not disrupt or disable activated features of other products that are identified as accessibility features, where those features are developed and documented according to industry standards. Applications also shall not disrupt or disable activated features of any operating system that are identified as accessibility features where the application programming interface for those accessibility features has been documented by the manufacturer of the operating system and is available to the product developer.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution can trap known accessibility key sequences and prevent their being passed to widgets.

  3. A well-defined on-screen indication of the current focus shall be provided that moves among interactive interface elements as the input focus changes. The focus shall be programmatically exposed so that assistive technology can track focus and focus changes.

    This is a key strength of IST's Motif Accessibility Solution. It provides control of the visual feedback of the current focus in the following ways:

    • Font and size - can be changed to any font in any size.
    • Color - can be changed to any color.
    • Tooltips - provide a textual feedback of the current focus widget.
    • Long and short descriptions - provide more detailed textual information.
    • Audio file - makes this accessible to external devices.
    • Border - drawing areas and scrolled areas have borders added.
    In addition, the widget with the current focus can be interrogated thereby making it "programmatically exposed".

  4. Sufficient information about a user interface element including the identity, operation and state of the element shall be available to assistive technology. When an image represents a program element, the information conveyed by the image must also be available in text.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution is able to add tooltips, long and short descriptions and audio filenames to widgets. This addresses the point concerning images and other widgets. IST's Motif Accessibility Solution is able to access all information about the current focus widget and make it accessible to assistive technologies.

  5. When bitmap images are used to identify controls, status indicators, or other programmatic elements, the meaning assigned to those images shall be consistent throughout an application's performance.

    This should be added to an accessibility checklist for application programmers.

  6. Textual information shall be provided through operating system functions for displaying text. The minimum information that shall be made available is text content, text input caret location, and text attributes.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution has access to the text set on a widget and the textual contents of a widget. IST's Motif Accessibility Solution provides access to all information on a widget.

  7. Applications shall not override user selected contrast and color selections and other individual display attributes.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution offers very good support for this requirement. Using the Application Inspector, users can configure the font, size and color of all user interface widgets in an application. Enough flexibility is provided so that any specified preferences can be system-wide or specific to individual applications or even individual widgets. IST's Motif Accessibility Solution also offers the option to configure multi-click intervals, key-click and bell volumes and bell duration as user preferences for individual applications or system-wide.

  8. When animation is displayed, the information shall be displayable in at least one non-animated presentation mode at the option of the user.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution offers the ability to display textual information about any widget, whether it is animated or not. Textual information is provided in the form of tooltip help and long and short descriptions. Users can also supply an audio filename which can then be accessed by a screen reader.

  9. Color coding shall not be used as the only means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution offers the ability to add tooltip labels to all user interface widgets. This would enable an alternative to color to be available to the user and to assistive technologies. In addition, it is also possible to add long and short descriptions and audio filenames. Being able to group widgets greatly helps with this issue.

  10. When a product permits a user to adjust color and contrast settings, a variety of color selections capable of producing a range of contrast levels shall be provided.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution does provide a lot of control over the foreground and background colors of all widgets in an application. Users can specify that the colors are made darker or brighter and specify a percentage or they can set specific colors.

  11. Software shall not use flashing or blinking text, objects, or other elements having a flash or blink frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz.

    This is not relevant to Motif. It should be included in an accessibility checklist for application programmers.

  12. When electronic forms are used, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.

    IST's Motif Accessibility Solution offers the ability to add tooltip help to all widgets, along with a long and short description and an audio filename. This would help users navigating around a form. There are a number of keyboard and navigation options which would help with all types of user interface. Grouping widgets together helps assistive technologies (such as screen readers) when they need to know which labels go with which controls. Such information is either calculated dynamically by examining the positions of widgets relative to one another and how they are related in terms of form attachments or is specified by the user in the Application Inspector.


 



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