[Accessibility] Numbered Road Map (Unedited)

[Janina Sajka]

        AT-SPI as a means of working towards US section 508, Europe's CEN,
	 Japan's ???, and Australia's ??? programs.
		(or part thereof that could agreed on with perhaps some
                minor exclusions.)

                This will gain us - key components for
                 desktop/windowing environments.

                Lays out the responsibilities of the application vs
                 the AT layer and the kernel.

                We have early signs that major Xwindow environments
                 (GNOME and KDE at least) will both be able to adopt
                 this without major disagreement.

                This can be made to work with Internationalization.

                The Service Provider Interface is more generic than
                 just a program interface. Between the AT-SPI and the
                 ATK we should be able to implement the libraries in a
                 number of environments.

--Year One Task?--

        Develop the guidelines for use of the standards to allow
         better utilization of a device by multiple apps to reduce the
         cost of ownership to the end user while maximixing all
         available compliant applications. (Hardware is expensive, but
         our software could be made less expensive.) This would make
         the technology more readily available to more people.
--Year One Task?--


        AccessX Standard for Accessibility

--Year One Task?--


        SMIL Libraries

--Year One Task?--

        Textmode Only Boot for Accessibility
         This will require some kernel, bios, and bootloader
         coordination.

--Year Two Task?--


        Guidelines for Accessibility Standard for Administrators

--Year Two Task?--

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Accessibility Standard for Administrators - to the extend
         possible. This involves possible kernel modifications, (how
         do devices plug in), that should be doable by this time frame.

--Year Three Task?--

        Structured Navigation Standard

         Important for voice driven devices in the car, etc.

          Ties into international DAISY Consortium:

		http://www.daisy.org /
		http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3936/

	  Also ties into upcoming accessibility requirements in U.S. education:

		http://www.cast.org/ncac/index.cfm?i=3138
		http://www.afb.org/textbooks.asp


	Could be tied into a standard way to "walk" a DOM, i.e. any hierarchically organized information on any user device, including the directory
tree

--Year Two Task?--

        Voice based I/O standard

	 This is to be coordinated with OpenI18N and other groups
	  dealing with various I/O methods.

        Text To Speech (TTS)
         Could involve XML in terms of what gets sent when and how
--Year Three Task?--


        Work to adopt portions of INCITS/V2 as appropriate
                Needed for servers driving kiosks

--Year Three Task?--

        Installation Standard for Accessibility

         This involves cursor tracking, etc.

--Year Three Task?--


        Comprehensive Braille Standard

--Year Three Task?--

        Magnification Support Standard -- Although pieces may be
         worked earlier, even in the first year, this will take a
         number of years to complete. This is not a time concern
         because of technology, but because of its overall size.

--Year Five Task?--


Other items we can help facilitate:

        Hardware device interfacing standard--perhaps even a Major/Minor
	spec?

        Some of this item is included above--but we need more on the
	input side,+especial console level.
-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175