OASIS TC Requirements for ODF Accessibility

1. OASIS TC Requirements for ODF Accessibility Rich Schwerdtfeger IBM Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Strategy and Architecture

2. Form Accessibility Analysis Sub-team - ODF • Goal: Produce Accessibility Assessment/Recommendations 3-6 months • Start in January • Involve industry support • Involve advocacy groups and accessibility influencers • Make ODF more accessible than proprietary document formats • Provide editor from Oasis • Select a chair • Industry technical • IBM (will involve accessibility experts from Emerging Technologies, Research, and Accessibility Center) • Sun (Star Office, Accessibility) • Adobe (Accessibility) • Corel (Accessibility) • Advocacy groups and accessibility influencers • Royal National Institute of the Blind • Massachusetts commission for the Blind • Daisy Consortium • Bay state council for the Blind • Free Standards Group

3. Accessibility Requirements – Basic Principles • Ensure Alternative text for all non-text elements • Ensure text on image maps • Ensure allowance for relative font sizes • Ensure provides for structural and list semantics • Ensure provides for changes in natural language • Ensure provide for table header and row/column descriptions • Ensure author can provide a logical keyboard navigation (needed for presentations) • Ensure may group large blocks • Ensure label associations • Link Identification (allow author to describe where a link goes) • Ensure synchronized media may include captions • Ensure accessibility features from W3C specifications are supported

4. Accessibility Requirements – Trumping proprietary office formats • Support DAIST standards for talking books(allow for XSLT conversion to DAISY) • Enhance Braille support • Improve the accessibility of presentations • Z-order • Groupings • Navigation • Relationships • Slide summary • Support for tables (include tables in presentations) • Incorporate Dynamic Web Access Standards being developed in the W3C • Support for dynamic web content resulting from scripting (would like use cases from ODF Working group) • Through namespaces or direct incorporation • Support role attribute from XHTML2 • Document structure meta data

5. API Effort – Exterior to OASIS • IBM Workplace has built accessibility API extensions for Workplace documents • Design involved AT vendors and developers up front • Leverages basic MSAA 1.3 to speed AT vendor support • Extensions designed to facilitate port to Linux accessibility infrastructure • Consulted key AT vendors in design (Windows and Linux) • Extend API to ensure leveraging new ODF accessibility extensions • Ensure features adopted by FSG for Linux • Deliver Documentation to industry

6. ODF Initial Assessment – Very Early

7. Checklist based on WCAG 1.0

8. Alternative Text for non-text elements Reference OpenDocument Specification v1.0 Chapter 9, 9.3.9 Alternative Text

9. Suggestion • ODF should allow <svg:desc> (Alt Text) in any drawing shapes • <draw:line> (Line and Arrow) • <draw:connector> • <draw:polyline> • <draw:path> • <draw:polygone> • <draw:regular-polygone> • <draw:ellipse> • <draw:rect> (Rectangle) • <draw:circle> (Circle) • <draw:custom-shape> (Auto Shape) • <dr3d:scene> (3D Shape) • <draw:g> (Grouping) • <draw:page-thumbnail> • <draw:measure> • <draw:caption> • <draw:control>

10. Grouping in Presentation WCAG 1.0 12.3 Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate. [Priority 2]

11. Suggestion OpenDocument Specification v1.0, Chapter 8 Chapter 8 Tables This chapter describes the table structure that is used for tables that are embedded within text documents and for spreadsheets. Should be embedded within text documents, spreadsheets and for presentation documents. • ODF should support Table in presentation documents

12. Link Identification Reference OpenDocument Specification v1.0 Chapter 5, 5.1.4 Hyperlinks WCAG 1.0 13.1 Clearly identify the target of each link. [Priority 2]

13. Suggestion • ODF should support hint text for hyperlink. • <text:a> (text hyperlink) should have the element such as <text:desc> which represents hint text for hyperlink.

14. Logical Tab Order Reference OpenDocument Specification v1.0 Chapter 11, 11.5.15 Tab Index • PowerPoint and OOo Impress apply Z order as Tab order. • Screen reader reads objects according to its Z order. WCAG 1.0 9.4 Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects. [Priority 3]

15. Suggestion • ODF should support tab order attribute for all drawing shapes. • All drawing shapes listed below should have the attribute such as <draw:tab-order> which represents the tab order. • <draw:line> (Line and Arrow) • <draw:connector> • <draw:polyline> • <draw:path> • <draw:polygone> • <draw:regular-polygone> • <draw:ellipse> • <draw:rect> (Rectangle) • <draw:circle> (Circle) • <draw:custom-shape> (Auto Shape) • <dr3d:scene> (3D Shape) • <draw:g> (Grouping) • <draw:measure> • <draw:caption> • <draw:control> • <draw:frame>

16. Label Association Reference OpenDocument Specification v1.0 Chapter 11, 11.5.9 Label • Screen reader cannot recognize the association between a text element and a non-text element. WCAG 1.0 12.4 Associate labels explicitly with their controls. [Priority 2]

17. Suggestion • ODF should support label associating function for all drawing shapes • <draw:text-box> should have the attribute such as <draw:label> • <draw:label> should support the elements listed below • <draw:line> (Line and Arrow) • <draw:connector> • <draw:polyline> • <draw:path> • <draw:polygone> • <draw:regular-polygone> • <draw:ellipse> • <draw:rect> (Rectangle) • <draw:circle> (Circle) • <draw:custom-shape> (Auto Shape) • <dr3d:scene> (3D Shape) • <draw:g> (Grouping) • <draw:measure> • <draw:caption> • <draw:control> • <draw:frame>

18. What needs to be done? • Perform accessibility assessment of ODF 1.0 – Content to drive accessibility API • Opportunity to improve accessibility of Documents through Open Standards • Opportunity to deliver accessible documents to open source platforms (Linux) • Establish OASIS subgroup targeting full accessibility assessment in 3-6 months • Involve major industry players (IBM, Sun, Adobe, FSG) • Involve Advocacy groups (RNIB, Bay State Council for the Blind, Daisy Consortium, etc.) • Providing basic accessibility that aligns with what is provided in MS Office formats • Provide for Improved access to presentations (above what is provided in MS Office formats) • Assess what W3C accessibility features are incorporated or are missing to support • SMIL captioning, XForms, SVG, XForms, Dynamic Web content • Scripting and extend the specification to support these features • Address Assistive Technology Support – Interoperability discussion • Platform Accessibility API • Address Developer

19. BACKUP

20. Assistive Technology Support • Open Office launches separate JVM to marshal accessibility communications between AT and Office applications • Slow performance (Multiple context switches) • Difficult to maintain (debugging nightmare) • Is the bug in UNO, UNO Access Bridge, “accessibility JVM”, Java Access Bridge, or underlying platform accessibility API? • UNO API does not map exactly to Java Accessibility API anyway (8 major differences) • IBM Replacing bridge in Workplace with direct COM Implementation • FAST (AT vendors run in process on Windows) • Spent good portion of 2005 working with Freedom Scientific to document access speed and MSAA support • Reuses MSAA where applicable • Same mechanism could be employed in Open Office

21. Tooling • Instances where OpenOffice, Workplace not exposing accessibility properties • OLE embeddings allowed alt text property but not saved in file format • ODF format does support alt text on OLE Objects • More to be assessed