AIA Accessibility Interoperability Alliance

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AIAAccessibility Interoperability Alliance

• Andreas Ebert
• Regional Technology Officer
• Microsoft Corporation

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Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA)

• Purpose
• Facilitate collaboration within the accessibility
  engineering community to deliver pragmatic
  solutions to long-standing AT/IT
  interoperability challenges
• Organization
• Formed in Nov 2007 by twelve companies (from
  North America and Western Europe)
• 41 members today span the globe and represent a
  variety of business models open source,
  proprietary, desktop, mobile and web
• Three categories of membership (Developer,
  Contributor, Supporter) offer varying levels of
  participation and have attracted for-profit,
  non-profit, NGO, and university members)
• Structure of Steering Committee ensures equal
  representation of AT and IT interests
• Funding for AIA operations, website, etc. during
  the start-up phase has been provided by Microsoft
  because it recognizes the importance of the AIAs
  work
• Once incorporated as a non-profit organization,
  the AIA will be jointly funded by its members
• Website www.AccessInteropAlliance.org

Accessible Technology (AT) and Information
Technology (IT)
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AIA - Members

• Developer members
• Acapela Group
• Adobe Systems
• Ai Squared
• Bayfirst Solutions
• Claro Software
• Colligo Corporation
• Design Science, Inc.
• Dolphin Oceanic
• Eyetech Digital Systems, Inc.
• GW Micro
• HiSoftware
• IBM
• Madentec
• Microsoft
• Novell
• NV Access, Inc.
• QualiLife
• Serotek Corporation

• Contributor members
• Oracle
• Remedy Interactive, Inc.
• Technosite
• Supporter members
• AbilityNet
• AltFormat Solutions, LLC
• Bloor Research
• Cambridge Online
• Columbia University Teachers College
• e-ISOTIS
• Fortune Cookie
• Mainheading
• Nomensa
• United Kingdom Council for Access and Equality
  (UKCAE)
• Universal Access NA KAI
• University of Pittsburgh Department of
  Rehabilitation Science and Technology
• Royal National Institute of Blind People
• RTE

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Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA)

• Approach
• Identify the most critical AT/IT interoperability
  problems to be resolved
• Form working groups and recruit the engineers
  needed to solve these problems
• Collaborate with other organizations (e.g. W3C,
  Linux Foundation, etc.) to avoid duplication of
  effort and achieve synergistic outcomes
• When appropriate, may pursue standardization of
  resulting technologies and/or specifications
• Any AIA member can propose a new project and/or
  workgroup
• AIA welcomes additional members from the EU

Accessible Technology (AT) and Information
Technology (IT)
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AIA Working Groups

• Four initial projects proposed for the AIA
• Interoperability of Accessibility APIs
  IAccessible2 and UI Automation
• Common Keyboard Shortcuts for AT Products Used
  with Web Browsers
• Extensions to the UI Automation (UIA)
  Specification
• Web ARIA mapping to UI Automation
• Four working groups were formed and
  work/investigation began
• February 2009 Update
• Interoperability of Accessibility APIs WG
  expanded in scope to include the Linux
  accessibility APIs and hopefully Apples
  accessibility APIs (if an Apple engineer can be
  recruited)
• Common Keyboard Shortcuts WG was disbanded due to
  overlap with W3Cs Web 2.0 accessibility keyboard
  work
• UI Automation Extensions WG is building momentum
  and benefiting from participation by open-source
  and proprietary developers currently implementing
  UIA
• Web ARIA Mapping to UIA WG prepared an initial
  draft, submitted it to the W3C ARIA working group
  and has now disbanded its formal efforts in the
  AIA

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New Accessibility Developer Tools
http//www.codeplex.com/UIAutomationVerify
http//www.codeplex.com/AccCheck
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Thank You

• Andreas Ebert
• andrease_at_microsoft.com
• www.microsoft.com/enable
• Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA)
• www.AccessInteropAlliance.org