Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
- Subject: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
- From: Smith Kennedy <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 23:04:34 -0600
Hi,
I don't have really any experience with accessibility issues but I have
been developing on Macintosh systems for about 3 years. I have been
asked to comment on whether Mac OS X systems in general, and Web
browsers in particular, are Section 508 compliant. The question is
coming from co-workers who seem to be familiar with accessibility on
Windows systems. The questions they ask me are "Can a Mac OS X system
be used strictly with a keyboard? And, if not, how can it be Section
508 compliant?"
Windows systems' GUI and some other GUI systems like X Window seem to
always allow the user to use the tab key to navigate through all the
GUI controls in a particular application. In particular, all controls
in a window, including buttons, text boxes, pop-up menus, etc. can be
reached by simply hitting the "tab" key to move from one control to the
next. In Web browsers, the tabbing moves the user to each "clickable"
item on a page, be it a link or form component. (Let's ignore embedded
content such as Java applets or Flash objects for this discussion.)
However, Macintosh systems have traditionally only allowed tabbing to
move the user between certain types of controls. I believe they are
the text-related ones, such as text areas, text boxes, etc. Buttons,
pop-up menus, checkboxes and radio buttons have always been basically
inaccessible without a mouse. This seems to be true in normal apps as
well as in some Web browsers, including Safari. Lately, there have
been things that are supposed to allow "full keyboard access" to all
GUI controls, but I haven't found that it extends to all applications.
Perhaps only Cocoa apps inherited that capability automagically? It is
not clear to me. But if that was all that Apple was relying on, that
would be incomplete.
Reading several URLs on Apple's site:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/universalaccess.html
http://developer.apple.com/internet/html/access.html
seems to indicate that Mac OS 10.2 is Section 508 compliant, and gives
tips on how to make HTML pages accessible. But given what I know so
far (which isn't really that much) I don't see how it is possible.
So I really don't know how to answer their questions. Indeed, I share
their questions and I want to understand this more fully. But I do
understand that there are differences in the core philosophy of how
Apple's graphical user interface(s) have been developed and conceived
than those from the UNIX/X Window community, or the way Microsoft has
developed theirs over time. So I must be missing something.
If a person can't see, how are they supposed to be able to use a
Macintosh computer running Mac OS X unless they have at their disposal
true end-to-end "full keyboard access" for all apps? Or does Apple
have a way of allowing "mouse-like" user input that can be meaningful
for those who cannot see?
I apologize in advance if this is a question that can be easily
answered elsewhere, but I haven't found any information on the open Web
or Apple's developer site that might answer this so far. I also
apologize if I got the names of GUI controls mixed up between Java AWT,
Macintosh Toolbox, and some Win32 names that may have creeped into my
lexicon. I wish they weren't all using different names for the same
things, but the world isn't that simple.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Smith
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