AEGIS: developer tools, assistive technologies under

an open source software license

Christophe StrobbeKatholieke Universiteit Leuven

Belgium

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Introduction

• EU demographic shift:– 2000: 15.7% over 64– 2010: 17.6% over 64 (2007 estimate)– 2020: 20.7% over 64 (2007 estimate)

• EU-25 employment rates of older workers– 40% in 2004– 59% in 2025 (2007 estimate)

12 April 2010, Paris, France

i2010

EU policy framework for information society and media

• Aims– to create a Single European Information Space,

which promotes an open and competitive internal market for information society and media services,

– to strengthen investment and innovation in ICT research,

– to support inclusion, better public services and quality of life through the use of ICT

12 April 2010, Paris, France

AEGIS

• ± 20 partners– Coordinator: CERTH-HIT (Greece)– Companies: Sun/Oracle, AOL, RIM,

Vodafone, …– Research: Fraunhofer, Univ Poli Madrid,

Univ of Cambridge, Czech Tech Uni, Univ of Toronto, K.U.Leuven

– Others: ACE (cf. oatsoft),…• September 2008 – February 2012 (42

months)

12 April 2010, Paris, France

AEGIS: Areas

• Desktop• Rich Internet Applications• Mobile applications

• User-centered design

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Third Generation Accessibility

• First generation– 1960s – 1980s– Expensive, bolt-on solutions– Limited and slow– E.g. Optacon, talking calculator, simple

screenreaders

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Second Generation Accessibility

• Second generation– Late 1980s – today– Works with graphical user interfaces– Text to speech, speech recognition– Often relies on

reverse engineering the OS, replacing the video driver, chaining the keyboard driver

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Third Generation Accessibility

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Third Generation Accessibility

• “Engineered accessibility”• All the information needed by AT is

provided through a single programming interface=Accessibility API

• Introduced to desktop Java by Sun• Later: GNOME, Apple Accessibility

APIs, MS UI Automation, IAccessible2

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Open Source

• Most software produced in AEGIS will be open source

• => Eliminate license costs as argument against accessibility

• Contributions to mainstream applications that are available as open source

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Open Accessibility Framework

• Address the whole “accessibility chain”: design, development, deployment

1. Accessibility in basic building blocks of software applications

2. Developers use building blocks with basic accessibility; checking tools in IDEs

3. Application exposes accessibility mechanisms to the native accessibility API on the user’s platform, and thus to AT.

12 April 2010, Paris, France

User-Centred Design

• AEGIS development supported by user-centred design

• Downloads:– Use cases

http://www.aegis-project.eu/ > Results> Deliverables

– 15 Personas (Creative Commons License)http://www.aegis-project.eu/ > Results > Personas

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Desktop Developments

• Screen magnifier for GNOME (ATRC, University of Toronto)

• OpenDocument Text to DAISY (Vincent Spiewak & K.U.Leuven)

• OpenDocument Text to Braille (K.U.Leuven)

• Graphic symbol support in OpenOffice.org for persons with cognitive impairments

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Desktop Developments

• Opengazer: eye-tracking application that works with cheap cameras (webcams) (Univ of Cambridge)In conjunction with Dasher, opengazer allows you to write with your eyes

RIA Developments

• WAI ARIA implementation in one or more JavaScript UI libraries

• Accessibility in JavaFX UI components• WAI ARIA in open-source browser

(overtaken by events)• Open developer tool for creating

accessible RIAs

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Mobile Platform Developments

• Accessible phone dialer and contact manager

• Accessible messengering• Open-source text-to-speech engine for

mobile phones• Alternative text entry for users with motor

impairments – Dasher• Captions and audio descriptions for video

12 April 2010, Paris, France

12 April 2010, Paris, France

Contact

• http://www.aegis-project.eu/ • Newsletter• Conference & User Forum in Sevilla,

October 2010