blob: 1448f67f9518083a4da378030e968f25e1348491 [file] [log] [blame]
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML lang="en">
<HEAD>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright (c) IBM Corporation and others 2007. This page is made available under license. For full details see the LEGAL in the documentation book that contains this page." >
<TITLE>Overview of the GUI Accessibility mode</TITLE>
<LINK href="aDesigner.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" class="head">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Overview of the GUI Accessibility mode</H1>
<P>
Today's applications often use a Graphical User Interface (GUI), which provides an intuitive user interface using visual controls such as windows, icons, and buttons.
In addition, the GUIs used for visual interfaces and their visual effects are continuing to evolve.
This shift to more advanced GUIs affects not only desktop applications, but also Web applications that use Flash or DHTML.
</P>
<P>
In order to use a GUI application with a screen reader, the application and the screen reader must work together.
For the Windows&#174; environment, Microsoft&#174; Active Accessibility (MSAA) was created as an accessibility support technology, and standardization work is underway for an extension to MSAA called the IAccessible2 interface.
However, because there is no supporting software system to effectively and efficiently evaluate implementations using MSAA and IAccessible2, making GUI applications accessible is very difficult.
</P>
<P>
The GUI Accessibility mode of aDesigner uses various techniques to efficiently support GUI accessibility checking both for GUI applications and for webpages.
With the GUI Accessibility mode, the accessibility information that the GUI controls inside of an application or inside of a webpage can be checked automatically.
In addition, the GUI Accessibility mode displays the visual content of the GUI in different ways, such as flat text, a tree outline, or with detailed properties.
Combinations of these functions are effective in helping application developers find problems.
</P>
<H1 class="related">Related topics</H1>
<UL class="related">
<LI><A href="workspaceGui.html">Exploring the GUI Accessibility mode</A>
<LI><A href="checkGui.html">Checking the accessibility of an application in the GUI Accessibility mode</A>
</UL>
<P>
<A href="index.html">Go to Index</A>
<hr>
<DIV class="logo"><IMG src="images/logo.gif" alt=""></DIV>
</P>
<P class="trademark">
Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>