Re: xForms and Adobe Forms - WAI Version 1 AA Compliant

Hi Brendan,

At 18:38 11/02/2008, Brendan Laing wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I’m working on a large UK local government 
>project and we are actively debating whether we 
>should use a xForms or Adobe forms solution for 
>a web-based citizen portal (allowing citizens to 
>raise service requests such as ‘missed bin 
>collection’ or ‘disabled parking application – 
>blue badge’). Our concern is that xForms and 
>Adobe Forms may not be WAI Version 1 AA 
>Compliant. We are trying to use the next 
>generation of forms technology but we are 
>concerned about the accessibility, can you 
>advise us on compliance of these technologies or how we can assess compliance?

As far as I know, the barrier to an accessible 
XForms application is not located in the XForms 
spec (assuming you don't do any nasty things with 
colour combinations, XML Events, etc), but in the 
(un)availability of accessible XForms implementations, i.e. browser plugins.
The documentation on IBM Lotus Forms V3.0 and IBM 
Lotus Forms Express [1] mentions support by 
MSAA-compliant screen readers, such as JAWS 7.10, 
Window-Eyes, or Narrator, but it is not entirely 
clear to me if this applies to IBM Lotus Forms 
Viewer (which can run stand alone or in IE 6 (or 
higher) and Firefox 1.5 (or higher)) or another component of the suite.
I'm not aware of other XForms implementations 
that claim to make XForms accessible to a screenreader.

Of course, it is possible to use XForms on the 
server side and have it converted to XHTML + 
JavaScript before it is sent to the client, but I haven't investigated that.


[1] 
<http://www-01.ibm.com/cgi-bin/common/ssi/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&htmlfid=897/ENUS207-218&appname=isource&language=enus>

Best regards,

Christophe

>
>Brendan Laing
>
>Ps - We have searched the archives and have not 
>found any guidance on this topic. Apologies if 
>we have missed something relevant.


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Received on Tuesday, 12 February 2008 15:04:58 UTC