Mac accessibility

>I've attempted to research accessibility guidelines and support on 
>the Mac.I found this link to a very general article which is really 
>all about 508 and web accessibility 
>http://developer.apple.com/internet/_html/access.html

That is merely an article Apple commissioned (either from Jeffrey 
Zeldman or Steve Champeon, but not me). You actually want 
<http://applefederal.apple.com/compliance.html>, and even that 
doesn't tell you much.

>Also, I tried to find information in the Apple Developer site (I 
>signed up) and there's noting in there. If someone was designing an 
>interface for the Mac, where would they go for specifics on making 
>it accessible? Or is there any support for accessibility in the Mac 
>OS at all?

It's pretty crappy. The definitive examination is of course my series 
of articles in Tidbits 
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1189>.

OS 9 and previous support for access was not very good. OS X 
accessibility started out literally at zero (less than OS 9!) and is 
improving slowly-- see 10.1's Universal Access control panel-- but is 
nowhere near being sufficient or even tolerable, and there is no 
credible Apple Web site on the topic.

I have friends in the biz who are labouring to change all this, and 
amazingly enough, it seems to be working, though what is actually 
working is the task of getting the entire topic on Apple's radar 
rather than setting up any kind of infrastructure.
-- 
         Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org | <http://joeclark.org/access/>
         Accessibility articles, resources, and critiques ||
           "I do not pretend to understand the mind of Joe Clark"
           -- Larry Goldberg

Received on Saturday, 6 October 2001 09:58:20 UTC