PC World (Feb. 15, 2012)- Almost 50 million citizens have disabilities, and the likeliness of a disability rises with age. Meanwhile, nearly one-quarter of the workforce will be 55 or older by 2018. At the same time, mobile devices that are smaller than the typical desktop computer and require more dexterity to operate are becoming more common in business.As Windows 8 straddles the desktop-mobile divide, it will include assistive technologies optimized for touch-enabled devices, and built to be easier for easier integration by developers.
Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog on Tuesday said the new OS will include improvements to help users with physical disabilities, including vision, mobility, hearing and cognitive impairments. In the post, Jennifer Norberg, lead project manager of the Human Interaction Platform team, focused on the underlying assistive-technology changes to Windows 8, and specific changes to serve users with vision impairments.
1. Adopting Standards
The most important change is the adoption of industry standards, including those from the Web Accessibility Initiative, Accessible Rich Internet Applications, HTML5, and XAML. Norberg's post notes that in previous versions of Windows, vendors had to use "different 'creative' ways of getting information from the system," making it difficult to add assistive technologies to apps. Providing a standards-based “accessibility foundation” for developers to build on will make it easier to add ATs to apps, which should expand their use and result in a larger number of apps being accessible.To read the entire article, please click on the above title.
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