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This is a report from Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) highlighting Java computer access demonstrations, papers, and presentations at the recent CSUN Technology and Persons with Disabilities conference.
Greetings:
Last week was the annual CSUN Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities. Accessibility to the Java platform was one of the themes of the conference, and there were a number of conference sessions devoted to the topic, as well as a 3 hour evening session on Java Accessibility hosted by Sun Microsystems. Access to Java applications was demonstrated at the show by IBM, Henter-Joyce, Syntha-Voice, and Sun. In addition, Sun showed a few new technologies which showed the benefits of Java Accessibility outside of the traditional desktop realm.
The first Java Accessibility presentation was by Earl Johnson of the Sun
Accessibility team, titled "A Primer on the Java Platform and Java
Accessibility" on Wednesday afternoon. In this presentation, Earl gave a
broad overview of the history of Sun's development of Java technologies and the
Java Accessibility effort. The presentation paper can be found at:
http://www.dinf.org/csun_99/session0193.html
The next presentation was from Richard Schwerdtfeger and the IBM Special
Needs Systems group, titled "IBM's Self Voicing Kit Technology for Java:
IBM's Solution to Bring Cross-Platform Accessibility to Mainstream
Computing" on Thursday morning. This presentation, expanded to two hours,
included detailed information on the architecture of the IBM Self Voicing Kit
technology for the Java platform, showing it's uses both as a screen reader, as
well as a tool for evaluating the accessibility of a given Java application.
The presentation paper can be found at:
http://www.dinf.org/csun_99/session0098.html
In addition to the presentations by IBM employees, guests from CAST, the
National Security Administration (NSA), CPB/WGBH/CAM, and Sun Microsystems gave
demonstrations at this session. CAST demonstrated Bobby (http://www.cast.org/bobby), the web page
accessibility test tool developed for the Java platform and accessible because
of its support of the Java Accessibility API. The NSA talked about how they are
using the IBM SVK with Solaris systems to get access to applications developed
in the Java language deployed within their organization. CPB/WGBH/CAM showed an
application developed as part of their National Science Foundation-funded
project on CD-ROM Access for Blind and Visually Impaired students -> an
application for teaching how photosynthesis works which has a "no
compromises" complex graphical interface, totally accessible through the
IBM SVK (for more information, see their project web site at:
http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/ncam/cdrom/
Finally, Sun Microsystems demonstrated access to a shareware e-mail client developed for the Java Platform, ICEMail (http://www.ice.com/java/icemail), sending e-mail between a Solaris workstation and a Linux system, both running the Java 2 platform, and both talking via the IBM SVK.
On Friday evening, Sun gave a 3 hour presentation outside of the normal conference agenda. At this presentation, Sun devoted the bulk of the time to showcasing accessible Java applications through various different assistive technologies which support the Java Accessibility API. At the end of the evening, Sun also showed applications for Java Accessibility outside the traditional confines of "desktop computing": an accessible ATM machine and environmental control systems.
The first product demonstration of the evening came from Henter-Joyce, which
showed an unreleased version of their screen reader, JFW, working with the
Bobby web page checker Java application. Bobby was launched just like a typical
Windows application -> from the Start menu where it had been installed. This
invoked a Java virtual machine into which Bobby was loaded. Through a
not-yet-released version of the Sun Access Bridge to Native Code technology (http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/jaccess-1.2/doc/bridge.html),
JFW then read the contents of the Bobby application. With JFW, Bobby behaved
just like an accessible Windows application. Tabbing through dialogs,
manipulating menus, and editing text in the various text fields of Bobby worked
as a JFW would expect from a typical Windows application. A press release from
Henter-Joyce on their Java Accessibility support can be found at:
http://www.hj.com/NewsCommentary/JavaCSUN.html
The second product demonstration of the evening came from Syntha-Voice,
which showed an unreleased version of their screen reader, WindowBridge,
working with the sample Swing application Stylepad. Stylepad is a text editor
which supports rich text attributes and graphics. Through a not-yet-released
version of the Sun Access Bridge, WindowBridge provided access to the Stylepad
application and the text document contained within it. Showing off one of the
key features of the Java Accessibility API, WindowBridge spoke the attributes
of the text contained within the Stylepad document, stating when the text was
underlined or in boldface, what the font name and size were, and the red,
green, and blue components of the color used for text that wasn't black pixels
on a white background. When someone from the audience asked how long it took
Syntha-Voice to develop the level of support for the Java platform that was
being demonstrated, they answered that it took them less than a week. More
information about WindowBridge can be found at:
http://www.synthavoice.on.ca/
The third product demonstration of the evening came from IBM, which showed their Self Voicing Kit (http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/svk) in conjunction with BluePages, an internal IBM application used for looking up fellow employees. IBM demonstrated the power and flexibility of their technology, which is written in the Java language and therefore platform independent.
The next set of folks were from the NSA, echoing their earlier presentations as part of the IBM session. Gary Day and Chris Murphy talked about how easy it was to make the Java applications they were developing for the NSA accessible. They recounted how rapidly development went for them in the Java platform, and how by simply following a few simple guidelines they wound up with a very accessible set of applications that were to be deployed through the NSA.
After the NSA came Madeleine Rothberg and Tom Wlodkowski from CPB/WGBH/NCAM, echoing their earlier presentations as part of the IBM session. They showed their photosynthesis teaching demonstration application in conjunction with the IBM SVK. One of the most powerful demonstrations of the high quality of the access provided by this combination was at the screen showing a two dimensional graph of the rate of production of oxygen by the plant as the user varied the amount of light and other inputs. As the user changed the inputs, the rate of oxygen production changed visibly on the graph, and simultaneously the IBM SVK spoke the new rate in a different voice.
The remainder of the Friday evening presentation was given by employees from Sun Microsystems. Lynn Monstanto showed JavaWorkShop (http://www.sun.com/workshop/java/), a development environment for Java applications, itself written entirely in the Java language. Lynn, formerly a member of the JavaWorkShop development team, showed how he used the Java Accessibility Utilities test tools to ensure that JavaWorkShop would be accessible, explaining how the Java Accessibility API works.
Peter Korn and Dena Shumila then demonstrated again for the evening audience access to ICEMail with speech via the IBM SVK from both Solaris and Linux systems. Underscoring why ICEMail, an application simply downloaded off of the Internet at the beginning of the show, worked so well with the IBM SVK, Sun read from some of the six published books on the Java Foundation Classes and Java 2 platform which discuss Java Accessibility and in many cases give detailed, step-by-step instructions to Java developers on how to support Accessibility and Assistive Technologies in their Java applications.
The last two demonstrations of the evening showed applications of Java
Accessibility outside of the traditional desktop environment. The first of
these was a prototype Accessible ATM machine. Marney Beard of Sun demonstrated
first how the ATM machine prototype works for a typical mainstream user. It
behaved just like one would expect an ATM to behave, asking her for her PIN
code, giving her access to her accounts, and allowing her to make deposits and
retrieve cash. Then Dena Shumila used the ATM. This time, however, the ATM read
from her JavaRing (in practice this would be a plastic card) information
specifying that she wanted the ATM to use a low-vision Look & Feel, along
with a particular screen reader, as part of her ATM interaction. The ATM then
reconfigured itself, changing to a high contrast screen with large text,
loading in a screen reader, and speaking to her. It then asked her for her PIN,
which she entered, and then it told her about her accounts and she navigated
through the ATM screens to retrieve some cash. Dena and Marney then explained
how the Accessible ATM prototype works, that it is based on the Java 2
platform, and that while it is a prototype, the technologies inside it could be
used and deployed by financial institutions. For more information about the
Accessible ATM prototype, see the presentation at:
http://www.sun.com/access/presentations/AATM/ or the white paper at:
http://www.sun.com/access/wp-aatm/
In the final demonstration of the evening, Peter Korn of Sun Microsystems talked about Sun's new Jini technology (http://www.sun.com/jini), and implications for pairing Jini with the Java Accessibility work Sun is doing. Peter demonstrated a Java application which controlled a lamp and a clock radio. This application used the Java Accessibility API, and so would be accessible to all of the screen readers which were demoed earlier in the evening. Peter stated that the hope of the Sun Accessibility team is that in the future, Jini-enabled devices such as elevators and stereo systems and microwave ovens would provide user-interfaces for the Java platform which used the Java Accessibility API and thereby worked with assistive technologies. A user in a wheelchair could then roll up to an elevator, have the computer on the wheelchair discover the Jini-enabled elevator and then be able to manipulate the buttons of the elevator directly from the Java application downloaded automatically to the wheelchair.
On Saturday morning Madeleine Rothberg and Tom Wlodkowski gave a detailed
hour long presentation titled "Adapting Multimedia Software For Blind
Students: Choices And Challenges." This presentation went into more depth
on the Photosynthesis teaching application they demonstrated earlier in the
conference, and discussed how easy it was for them develop the rich graphical
interface that was at the same time very accessible, using the Java Foundation
Classes and their built-in support for the Java Accessibility API. The
presentation paper can be found at:
http://www.dinf.org/csun_99/session0156.html
Later Saturday morning, Gary Day and Christopher Murphy gave a presentation
titled "Information Technology Accommodation", in which they
discussed how the National Security Agency was using applications developed for
the Java platform on their thousands of Sun Solaris systems, accessible to
their blind employees. The presentation paper can be found at:
http://www.dinf.org/csun_99/session0191.html
In addition to the presentations at CSUN, several companies were demonstrating their work with Java Accessibility at the show. IBM and Henter-Joyce were demonstrating access to Java applications in their suites on the 17th floor of the hotel, and Sun was showing access to Solaris and Linux in their suite, as well as showing their Accessible ATM prototype and giving away JavaRings.
Also available for the CSUN show were two articles on the Sun web site discussing Java Accessibility. In the front-page article titled "The Java Accessibility API Hits the Road" (http://java.sun.com/features/1999/03/access.html), Steve Malone introduces the notion of Accessibility and discusses how the Java Accessibility API and the Java platform combine to support people with disabilities. Headlining The Swing Connection, a web site dedicated to the Java Foundation Classes, Mark Andrews describes how programmers should use the Java Accessibility API to make their applications accessible in the article titled "Accessibility and the Swing Set: How Swing Can Help You Create Accessible Apps" http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/special_report/accessibility/accessibility.html
Finally, Sun's documentation team had just released in time for CSUN a new edition of The Java Tutorial, a definitive tutorial on how to develop for the Java platform (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/). Throughout the tutorial's coverage of the Java Foundation Classes are source code examples which show how to use the Java Accessibility API. In addition, a special section titled "How to Support Assistive Technologies" (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/misc/access.html) shows step-by-step how to ensure that your Java application supports assistive technologies.
All in all, it was quite a conference!
Peter Korn
Assistive Technology Architect
Sun Microsystems
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