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| Accessible user interfaces |
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| <h2>Accessible user interfaces</h2> |
| <p>The term accessible is used to refer to software that has been designed so |
| that people who have disabilities have a successful interaction with it. |
| Accessible software takes many different kinds of disabilities into account:</p> |
| |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>visual - people with color blindness, low vision, or who are completely |
| blind</li> |
| <li>audio - people who are hard of hearing or are completely deaf</li> |
| <li>mobility - people who have physical impairments that limit their movement |
| and fine motor controls</li> |
| <li>cognitive - people who have learning disabilities and may need more |
| consistency or simplicity in their interfaces</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h3>Assistive technology</h3> |
| <p><b>Assistive technology</b> is equipment or software that is used to increase |
| the accessibility of existing operating systems and applications. While it |
| is beyond the scope of this programmer's guide to cover the broad scope of |
| assistive technologies, it is important for you to know that they exist. |
| Why? Because simple things you can do when programming your software or |
| documentation, such as providing alternate text descriptions for images in your HTML, or |
| keyboard equivalents for all of your software actions, can greatly improve the |
| effectiveness of assistive technologies that make use of these techniques.</p> |
| <h3>Accessibility resources</h3> |
| <p>There are some basic coding tips you can use when building plug-in user |
| interfaces that will increase the accessibility of your software. See <a href="../reference/misc/ui_accessibility_tips.html">Tips |
| for Making User Interfaces More Accessible</a> for more information.</p> |
| <p><a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/able/index.html">IBM's Accessibility Center |
| Website</a> has many useful resources for accessibility, including <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/able/guidelines">guidelines |
| and checklists</a> for developing software and web interfaces.</p> |
| <h3>SWT and accessibility</h3> |
| <p>Because SWT uses the operating system's native widgets, user interfaces built |
| with SWT will inherit any assistive technologies that have been installed on the |
| host operating system. SWT implements an interface, <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/swt/accessibility/AccessibleListener.html"><b>AccessibleListener</b></a>, |
| which provides basic accessibility information, such as descriptions of |
| controls, help text, and keyboard shortcuts, to clients. If you are |
| developing assistive technologies that need more information or want to improve |
| upon the basic accessibiliity of the workbench, you can add your own listeners |
| and override the default accessibility behavior in the platform. See the |
| package <a href="../reference/api/org/eclipse/swt/accessibility/package-summary.html"><b>org.eclipse.swt.accessibility</b></a> |
| for more detail.</p> |
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