Accessibility and OpenDocument
From Schoolforge-UK
Users of accessibility features and assistive technology are suddenly the focus of attention in a high profile battle over document formats. In Massachusetts the quality of accessibility tools available to the state's employers is under the spotlight. Rather than simply being pawns in the political and commercial wrangling, there is now a real possibility that users of accessibility features are about to get much better tools. More importantly an opportunity now exists for users and their representatives to influence accessibility features, particularly through a new project of the ODF Fellowship.
Massachusetts have decided to use the OpenDocument (ODF) format for all documents created after 1 January 2007 (the open PDF format will also be used). Microsoft's refusal to add support to their Office product means that those who currently use Assistive Technology with Office will be left 'high and dry' when trying to create or access state documents. Particular attention is being paid to staff with visual impairments, but problems could be experienced by anyone accessing the documents. The reason is simple, the most popular and functional accessibility tools work only with Microsoft software such as Office. In addition accessibility support organisations are almost exclusively familiar with these Windows tools.
Suddenly Office programs that support OpenDocument must now have first class accessibility support. Currently those programs are lacking required features. Some are Open Source projects and although the main Open Source projects such Linux, the Linux Desktops and projects like OpenOffice.org all have accessibility focus groups, the features provided are not all as complete as those in Windows programs. There are excellent Open Source accessibility Tools such as Dasher and Emacspeak but these are either not closely integrated with the Office tools or do not directly meet the needs of users with visual impairments.
This sudden need for accessibility tools for OpenDocument means that the supporting vendors (including IBM, Sun Novell, Adobe, Corel, Google, Apple, HP and Nokia) will be supporting activity on suitable projects. Possible approaches include modifying existing Windows accessibility tools to work with the other programs, adding features directly to the other programs and creating new open-standard accessibility components for use by all programs and tools.
This could also fuel incentives to find better tools and techniques as well as resolving issues such as ensuring accessibility features work with Thin Client systems such as LTSP and web-hosted applications. The result can only be better choice for users and should open the doors for innovation once Open Source programs have good accessibility features and the backing of the support agencies. In addition the current Windows accessibility tools have often achieved their current level of functionality by relying on undocumented and changable features and this fragile position can be completely avoided with Open Standards and Open Source programs.
OpenDocument is an 'open' standard, meaning that it is not owned by any one agency and grants free access and contribution to its specification. As a result any programs can be freely adapted to read and write OpenDocument. This leads to choice in programs used and ensures that documents will always be usable and this is behind the decision in Massachusetts to adopt the format.
Currently Microsoft Office with its 'closed' format is almost universally used by governments and businesses. Microsoft are unsurprisingly driving a fierce campaign against the Massachusetts decision for fear of a landslide migration. While they have refused to add OpenDocument support to Office they have stated that they will do so if there is enough demand. However that seems unlikely as they will then be supporting competition. If they change their mind then Accessibility users will be able to use their existing tools when working on OpenDocument but they will then lose out on this opportunity to get better features.
There is now unprecedented opportunity for all to be involved in influencing the accessibility features that become available in Office tools and generally. OpenDocument is managed by OASIS and they are to form a sub-committee to investigate what features are need in the format to directly support accessibility. In addition the ODF Fellowship who provide information and community around OpenDocument, have a project, open to anyone, that will help to ensure that the OpenDocument format provides the best possible support for accessibility. You can join the project on the ODF Fellowship Accessibility project website.
This explanation of the situation and the potential outcomes has been kept deliberately brief and reasonably and non-technical. A much more thorough analysis can be found on Peter Korn's Blog.
On a more general note the OATS project is working on helping users find Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS) and will bring OATS users together with Open Source developers in order ensure the best solutions are created. You can find out more in this introduction to OATS.
See Schoolforge Accessibility and Assistive Technology activities.
Update 30 Nov Things are moving fast and Microsoft responded to ODF last week by stating that they will open up the Office 12 XML file formats by submitting them to ECMA International for standardization. The openess depends on a patent protection covenant not to sue but there are serious doubts over that covenant. See this eWeek article and this detailed Analysis on Groklaw.
