Accessibility is the successful access to information and information technologies by people with disabilities. Apple’s commitment to accessibility is rooted in the Macintosh’s legendary ease-of-use and is enhanced by the Universal Access features in Mac OS X. Beginning in Mac OS X version 10.2, Apple introduced the accessibility architecture, which defines how an assistive technology, such as a screen reader or head-tracking mouse, communicates with applications running in Mac OS X.
This document describes why you should make your application accessible, a process Apple calls access enabling. It then provides an overview of the design considerations you should make when developing an accessible application. Finally, it describes Mac OS X accessibility architecture that supports both the access enabling of applications and the development of assistive technologies.
To reach the broadest range of users, all applications should be accessible. Therefore, all application developers should read this document to learn how accessibility affects their applications and how Mac OS X supports accessibility. This document is a prerequisite to the Cocoa and Carbon framework–specific documents listed in “See Also” that describe how to access-enable these types of applications.
Note: Java developers should implement the javax.accessibility APIs to ensure their applications are accessible (both Swing and AWT interfaces are accessible).
If you’re developing an assistive application, you should read this document for an introduction to the Mac OS X accessibility architecture. In particular, you’ll learn about some of the information you can expect to receive from an accessible application.
This document contains the following chapters:
“Why Make Your Application Accessible?” will help you to make a business justification for spending the development time to make your applications accessible.
“Developing an Accessible Application” describes design considerations to keep in mind during the design process and outlines how to access-enable an application.
“The Mac OS X Accessibility Protocol” provides an overview of the Mac OS X accessibility architecture.
“Testing for Accessibility” describes how to use tools Apple provides to test the accessibility of your application.
“Accessibility Keyboard Shortcuts” lists the keyboard shortcuts reserved by Mac OS X for accessibility purposes.
“Roles and Associated Attributes” lists the attributes associated with each role defined in the Mac OS X accessibility protocol.
“Document Revision History” lists the changes to this document.
In addition to Accessibility Overview, Apple developer documentation includes several documents that cover accessibility. Documents that describe specific areas of accessibility are listed below.
Getting Started with Accessibility provides a brief introduction to accessibility and describes learning paths you might choose to follow.
Accessibility Programming Guidelines for Carbon describes how to access-enable a Carbon application.
Accessibility Programming Guidelines for Cocoa describes how to access-enable a Cocoa application.
Carbon Accessibility Reference describes the functions, data types, and constants used in accessible Carbon applications.
NSAccessibility Reference describes the NSAccessibility protocol and its methods and constants.
In addition to these documents, Apple maintains a website devoted to accessibility in Mac OS X, with links to more information about compatible assistive technologies:
Last updated: 2008-03-11