TheAccessPond.com

Inspect32 is a tool from Microsoft that enables a developer to verify that information is being correctly exposed through MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility). MSAA is an information source for an assistive technology. As a developer or tester, by verifying that the “Name” property is being passed through, you will be able to ensure that screen [...]

3 Comments »

I hadn’t really thought about it but our posts focus on a lot of specific accessibility issues.  That being said we haven’t gotten too deep into the conception of accessibility and the guidelines, rules and/or regulations themselves.
I thought maybe it was a good time to put up a few posts that just lay out some [...]

No Comments »

Keyboard shortcuts aren’t just for users of Assistive Technologies such as the screen reader JAWS.  Most people could benefit by simply learning to use the keyboard a little more instead of relying solely on a mouse.  Call me crazy but I swear my shoulder ache’s at the end of the day thanks to that mouse [...]

No Comments »

I’ve stopped babbling about techno stuff and going back to what I do best– being a legal policy wonk on IT accessibility.  In a previous post, I blogged about the Target suit and promised I’d get back to it.  Well, I still haven’t had a chance to really focus on that, but one point that [...]

1 Comment »

As my wife Laura can attest, I’ve been burning the midnight oil recently working on my secret project that involves a lot of Adobe ColdFusion.  I’ve been an on-again-off-again CF author for some time, first working with ColdFusion 4 (or was it 3?) back in 1998 when I put together the CAVNET site for my friend [...]

No Comments »

I created some video trainings for Microsoft about creating a Microsoft UI Automation based screen reader. They demonstrate what the new technology can do using a reader for the New York Times. It was fun to work with the New York Times Reader as it is a very cutting edge application built with [...]

1 Comment »

I will be attending the Scripting Enabled conference next weekend to work on accessibility solutions for currently inaccessible content. I think the idea of the conference is great, bring a bunch of technology people together with people working in various disability communities with current issues and try to create a solution in a weekend. [...]

No Comments »

If you are a software tester or a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) person then you have no doubt written bug reports. The reports, which are also called defect reports, are the medium used to transfer your knowledge about the bug to those who will be tasked with fixing it. This report will first go to [...]

No Comments »

When I awoke this morning, a colleague of mine from the east coast called to tell me incredible news– the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) settled their long-standing lawsuit against Target Corporation for its inaccessible website for over $6 million!  This is really big news that ends two and a half years of bitter [...]

1 Comment »

Overview
Many Microsoft Word documents are exported to PDF files for the purpose distribution to a wide range of users. How well a Word document converts to a PDF file has a lot to do with the document design which is also going have a bearing the accessibility of the document.
Below are some suggestions on how [...]

1 Comment »