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Presenter(s)
Rob Haverty
Email: Robhav@microsoft.com
425-706-6847
In 2003, Microsoft Corporation commissioned Forrester Research, Inc., to conduct a study to measure the potential market of people in the United States who are most likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology for computers http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/. Accessible technology enables individuals to adjust their computers to meet their visual, hearing, dexterity, cognitive, and speech needs. It includes both accessibility options built into products as well as specialty hardware and software products (assistive technology products) that help individuals interact with a computer. Overall results show that 57% (74.2 million)i of computer users in the United States are likely or very likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology due to experiencing mild to severe difficulties or impairments http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/computerusers.aspx.
With the current technology, assistive technology vendors (ATV) are required to use many different approaches to obtain and present information about the UI to the end user, thus spending an inordinate amount of time and resources on providing this basic information. With such a large percentage of users needing accessible information it is becoming increasingly important to make it easier for an ATV to programmatically obtain information about the UI.
The new accessibility model for Windows, UI Automation, is designed to provide a single reliable source of UI information to assistive technology products and automated test scripts. It provides programmatic access that allows automated tests to interact with the UI and allows assistive technology products to provide information about the user interface to their end users. UI Automation also provides means for manipulating the UI.
UI Automation has two main audiences: UI Automation providers and UI Automation clients. UI Automation providers are applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, or third-party applications based on the Windows operating system. UI Automation clients are assistive technology applications, such as screen readers, screen enlargers, alternative input, or others. Automated test scripts can use UI Automation for automated testing and are also considered clients in the UI Automation framework.
i Study Commissioned by Microsoft Conducted by Forrester Research, Inc. 2004
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