Hi, IMHO adding restrictions by fiat on what will and won't compile wouldn't work. Let's say you have a compiler that complains when labels are not present. The "solution" for many devs would be to add a label off screen with blank text or with a single dot or something.
Perhaps some work could go into the development of screen-readers. Get some nice state-of-the-art AI in there. Just a thought. Tristan. On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 3:32 AM, Katherine Moss <[email protected]>wrote: > I'm not talking about Visual Studio itself not being accessible; that > program is as accessible as can be, except for the WPF designer, but to be > honest, I'd rather learn XAML for that purpose anyway since it's more > precise and fun to dig in, and I believe all programmers should do the > same. What is bothering me is that programs are allowed to be compiled > without all things labeled and adequate named and described by UIA > properties, you know? And it's not just the blind I'm defending here. > This is a problem for sighted individuals too. I believe that if a > program (free or paid, open source or not), will be released to the public > for download and use, then everything needs to be labeled, and that the > interface needs to be easy for users of all levels to follow. But not > labeling buttons and fields makes it insanely difficult for blind people > because if a screen reader (the word is screen reader, not E-Reader; that's > a different term), is trying to discover the information behind a button or > textbox, then all it will be able to report to the user is something like > "edit" or "button" when ideally it will say something like, for instance if > the edit field was for a server name say if one was connecting to a > particular server, the screen reader would say "servername edit" if the > button were labeled properly, and not to mention, sighted people would have > a better time of it too not having to hunt for the right values in the > right text boxes. > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of [email protected] > Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 11:34 PM > To: ozDotNet > Subject: Visual accessibility Re: field/button/control labeling > enforcement in Visual Studio sometime: who agrees with this proposal? > > Katherine, > > I'm a lurker on this list. Not being visually impaired myself, I hadn't > thought about people such as yourself having such frustration with the > tools we use, as most attention goes to online accessiblity. Perhaps > Microsoft and others aren't aware (or aware enough) that blind people do > write code. You mention open source so from your point of view how does > Eclipse stack up in impaired accessibility compared to Visual Studio? > > As for website accessibility, I'm hoping you're better served. When I > designed and built the online public litter and illegal dumping reporting > system for the Queensland Government there was a strong mandate in the > requirements to make it accessible to visually impaired people, at least > for all the public-facing components. Alt tags, no flash, caption tags, > careful Javascript use, no frames and other strict requirements were set. > > TO achieve this I found the US government Section 508 Web Accessibility > Standards to be very helpful, as well as the Illinois Center for > Information Technology and Web Accessibility guidelines. To test > accessibility I found browser plug-ins such as the JAWS and WAVE toolbars > to be very helpful as these allowed me to see what the page would look like > to an e-reader as well as in contrasting large fonts for use by a partially > sighted person. > > If you had a few minutes time I'd be interested in what your e-reader > makes of the accessibility of my litter reporting site > https://report-littering-dumping.ehp.qld.gov.au > (Written in C# / .NET / MVC2 / LINQ to SQL / SQL Server 2008) > > Steve Malikoff. > > > > Hello guys, > > I was just wondering how many of you agree with this. I, who's > desire it is to become an open source .NET Framework programmer, look at > all of the both open source, and not to mention, Microsoft-provided > products, and I can't tell you how much lazy programming I see out there. > I'm not calling you lazy programmers, so please, please don't take it that > way. I'm just saying, that for the masses, and especially for the many > blind and visually impaired users like me who rely on everything being > labeled so that screen readers, or software that converts text on screen > to speech, can understand and provide the right information. Half of the > time, I will download a piece of software whether open source or otherwise, > and I will never be able to utilize it due to nothing being labeled, or > some things being labeled and others not, giving only half the experience > to someone hard of seeing like me. Now, what I am proposing is strong and > provocative, but I think that it could pote! > ntially be a good thing if implemented correctly. I think that it would > be a good idea for Visual Studio to have a compilation requirement that all > elements are labeled, and all UIA properties exposable by a control are > implemented. Microsoft themselves are lazy when it comes to that; a lot of > their new interface for Windows server 2012 for instance, has so much > mislabeled and missing UIA content that either screen readers don't read at > all, or they read spurious content, as if they are reading .NET classes, > instead of application-generated, administrator-friendly messages. My > friend thinks that this would only work if Microsoft themselves built this > in, and he may be right. But I definitely think that it should be required > on most open source projects and open source frameworks that all elements > be labled and exposed that way people of all abilities and disabilities > alike can benefit. I don't see how it would work in the commercial sector > unless Microsoft implemented ! > it. Tell me what you guys think. > > > > > > > > >
