Accessibility

This section provides guidelines for making software applications accessible to people with disabilities.

Physical Disabilities

Provide keyboard access to all application features, such as those usually accessible through menus or drag and drop, to enable people with physical disabilities to more easily use your application.

Visual Disabilities

Follow these guidelines to make your application more accessible to people with visual disabilities:

• Do not hardcode application colors.

• Do not hardcode graphic attributes such as line, border, and shadow thickness. These attributes should scale with font size.

• Do not hardcode font sizes and styles.

• Provide descriptive names for all widgets. In particular, include descriptive names in your application code for widgets that do not display labels on the screen; for example, palette items or icons. This often enables screen-reading software to provide descriptive information to blind users.

Hearing Disabilities

Follow these guidelines to make your application more accessible to people with hearing disabilities:

• Never assume that an end user will hear an audible notification.

• Where appropriate, allow end users to choose between audible or visual cues.

• Do not overuse or rely exclusively on audible cues.

• Enable end users to configure frequency and volume of audible cues.

Language, Cognitive, and Other Disabilities

The access guidelines outlined for visual, hearing, and physical disabilities typically benefit end users with cognitive, language, and other disabilities. In addition to those guidelines, include tear-off menus and user-configurable menus for important application features whenever possible.