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Thread: I want to ask your help about accessibility information on Windows application

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From:
Date: Mon, Oct 16 2017 2:48AM
Subject: I want to ask your help about accessibility information on Windows application
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Hello, I'm Hyongsop Kim in Korea and screen reader user.
I'm working as a web accessibility test engineer.
So in case of web accessibility, I can test and advise to developers how to fix.
By the way, in case of windows application, I have no knowledge about that.
So if someone knows some issues that I'm asking, please help me.
1. In case of web, WAI-ARIA is the complementary tools to improve reading web pages by screen reader.
So if developers use typical controls such as link, button, input type=text and etc, there is no need ARIA.
But if tab control, custom control and etc should be used, ARIA is required.
By the way, in case of UI automation, is the function same as ARIA?
In other words, if windows software developer use typical controls such as combobox, checkbox and etc, there is no need Uai automation, right?
2. Our developer is using python win32 application, but doesn't know about UI automation.
By the way, he asks me to test his program, I discovered that an editbox has no label.
In case of html, I can advise him, to use label tag with for attribute or aria-lbael, but in case of python, how to advise to him?
3. Last question, in case of web, there is a tab index, that controls of keyboard focus.
But in case of win32, how to controls keyboard focus?

Thank you for your help.
I know that this community is discussing group regarding only web issues.
But I couldn't find about accessibility of windows software discussion group.
If you can't reply, because of this group character, please let me know the other channel that I can post it.

Thank you.

From: Srinivasu Chakravarthula
Date: Mon, Oct 16 2017 2:56AM
Subject: Re: I want to ask your help about accessibility information on Windows application
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Hello there,
Perhaps this resource from Microsoft would be of some help -
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/winforms/advanced/windows-forms-accessibility


Regards,

Srinivasu Chakravarthula - Twitter: http://twitter.com/CSrinivasu/
Website: http://www.srinivasu.org | http://serveominclusion.com

Let's create an inclusive web!

Lead Accessibility Consultant, Informatica

From: Shane Anderson
Date: Mon, Oct 16 2017 7:53AM
Subject: Re: I want to ask your help about accessibility information on Windows application
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Hello,

When it comes to stand alone applications don't worry about the code.
Accessibility issues are rarely as straight forward as with HTML and they
don't appear because the developer doesn't know how to code.

Application developers are generally much, much better at their craft than
the average web developer. I've found that a simple explanation of
accessibility principles and a clear demonstration of an issue is enough to
get them on the right track. They usually understand where to find help and
how to implement the correct APIs or other object modifiers. Concepts like
programmatic association and focus aren't difficult for them. On top of all
that, they enjoy the problem solving.

It seems fewer and fewer web developers have a clue how HTML works. Last
week a <button> was just a difficult-to-style <div> for many. Half the time
I'm writing their code that they're supposed to be experts at.

We're used to web developers needing us to do their job. I rarely
experience this with app developers.


Regards
Shane Anderson

From: JP Jamous
Date: Mon, Oct 16 2017 8:39AM
Subject: Re: I want to ask your help about accessibility information on Windows application
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Amen to that Shane.

I know this is not a project that uses .NET, but there is a class in .NET that helps link labels to text boxes and radio buttons. Those can help the desktop UI to be accessible right out of the box.

It is called Accessibility.dll and once imported, it can allow the coder to add the label text to the focusable object. That way, when a screen reader lands on it, it will extract the description from the MSAA directly. No screen reader scripts will be needed at all.

I have code samples in VB.NET for that class.