OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC

Accessibility Evaluation of the OpenDocument v1.0 specification

  • 1.  Accessibility Evaluation of the OpenDocument v1.0 specification

    Posted 05-26-2006 23:17
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    Subject: Accessibility Evaluation of the OpenDocument v1.0 specification


    Greetings,
    
    As set forth in the Statement of purpose of the Accessibility 
    Subcommittee of the OASIS ODF Technical Committee, the Accessibility 
    Subcommittee submits their report of the outcome of their accessibility 
    evaluation of the OpenDocument v1.0 specification.  Our report is 
    attached, in ODF, PDF, and XHTML formats.
    
    Here is our Executive Summary:
    
      The ODF Accessibility Subcommittee has identified 9
      accessibility issues in ODF 1.0, and proposes candidate
      solutions to them. With these changes, we believe that ODF
      will meet or exceed the accessibility support provided in
      all other office file formats as well as that specified in
      the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
    
      Furthermore, these modifications will enable ODF to support
      the authoring of DAISY digital talking books, a worldwide
      standard used by blind, low vision, learning disabled, and
      other print impaired communities.
    
      The recommended changes address:
    
        * Alternative text for non-text objects (3 recommendations)
        * Proper association of captions to captioned content
        * Encoding of pagination information
        * Preservation of table semantic structure imported from
          other file formats
        * Proper encoding of authored table header content
        * Author-defined logical navigation of page objects in
          presentations
        * Provision of alternative text hints for hyperlinks
    
      Furthermore, we request that the appropriate text be added to
      the ODF specification to indicate how this accessibility meta
      data is mapped by the authoring tool to a platform accessibility
      API as well as their accessibility applicability in the
      specification.
    
      To fully address the needs of people with disabilities in using
      ODF, an ODF application must meet a number of accessibility
      requirements as well.  ODF application developers should be
      provided with implementation guidelines to meet these
      requirements.
    
    
    It is the intention of this subcommittee to continue working, now with 
    our focus on the new goal of defining and delivering improvements to the 
    efficiency and usability of ODF by people with disabilities that goes 
    beyond the current state of the art.  These improvements include: 
    effective blind access to slide presentations; partnering with the W3C 
    to tackle SVG graphics accessibility; better access to graphs and 
    charts; and improved navigation models for tabular data.  We look 
    forward to delivering to the technical committee our thoughts and 
    recommendations in these areas for consideration in future versions of 
    the ODF specification.
    
    
    
    On behalf of the OASIS ODF Accessibility Subcommittee,
    
    
    Peter Korn
    Accessibility Architect,
    Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    
    

    odf11requirements052606b.odt

    odf11requirements052606b.pdf

    odf11requirements052606b.xhtml



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