[gui-talk] Fwd: Mozilla Firefox accessibility and usability enhancement

[David Andrews]

>
>Feel free to forward this message. My apologies for cross-postings.
>
>This message is for people who are interested in driving PCs more
>effectively by keyboard.
>
>A huge barrier to efficient, intuitive, and easy keyboard access to Windows
>for non-screen reader users relate to difficulties spotting the object that
>has focus. In general, focus indicators in Windows are either inconspicuous
>or too subtle. There are even situations when the focus indicator is
>invisible; users can only determine the object with focus by deduction. (If
>users have to think THAT hard to be able to operate software, usability is
>broken.)
>
>The issue of inconspicuous focus indicators has been known for at least
>eight years. I doubt that I was the first to note it, but I did document the
>problem in 1997 or 1998, and demonstrated it to several members of the
>Microsoft accessibility group in March 1998. Over the years I have
>facilitated workshops on keyboard-only access to Windows, and difficulties
>spotting the focused object has been a frequent source of frustration among
>workshop participants. When screen information cannot be perceived, the
>ability to act on the information is impeded, or stops.
>
>I do not know how or even whether the problem will be addressed in Windows
>Vista, which is scheduled for release next year. However, there is a partial
>solution available now, at least when browsing web content.
>
>Aaron Leventhal, the IBM web accessibility architect, recently sent me
>instructions for enhancing the default focus rings in Mozilla Firefox.
>Although not a perfect solution, it works extremely well, and I am
>suggesting that people try it. An unexpected yet entirely beneficial
>side-effect is that mouse users will have an easier time knowing whether
>they can enter text in a field without clicking into it, and whether they
>have successfully clicked or right-clicked on an object. Try it on
>www.google.com, and you will see what I mean.
>
>The solution beautifully illustrates that it is not only possible to design
>software that is as easy to drive by keyboard as by pointing and clicking,
>but that the result is more flexible, versatile, and easier-to-use software.
>The developers of Firefox appear to understand this more clearly than
>developers of most mainstream applications. Let us hope that this kind of
>perceptiveness becomes more widespread.
>
>Here are the steps to create more conspicuous focus indicators for Mozilla
>Firefox. The basic technique is to select some text in this message, copy
>it, and paste the text into a specific file in a Firefox subfolder:
>
>1) Exit Firefox.
>
>2) Find the "chrome" subdirectory for your Firefox settings.
>
>3) Look for a file called userContent.css or userContent-example.css. If it
>is userContent-example.css, copy it to userContent.css
>
>4) Open userContent.css in a text editor (e.g., WordPad or Notepad), and
>paste in the following 12 lines of text:
>
>*:focus { outline: 3px solid #10bae0 /* #10d0f0 */; outline-offset: 1px;
>outline-radius: 5px; }
>button:focus::-moz-focus-inner { border-color: transparent; }
>button::-moz-focus-inner,
>  input[type="reset"]::-moz-focus-inner,
>  input[type="button"]::-moz-focus-inner,
>  input[type="submit"]::-moz-focus-inner,
>  input[type="file"] > input[type="button"]::-moz-focus-inner {
>  border: 1px dotted transparent;
>}
>textarea:focus, button:focus, select:focus, input:focus {
>outline-offset: -1px; }
>input[type="radio"]:focus {outline-radius: 12px; outline-offset: 0px; }
>a:focus { outline-offset: 0px; outline: }
>
>
>
>5) Save the file.
>
>6) Launch Firefox and observe how focus is much easier to see, at least in
>content.
>
>
>Alan
>
>Alan Cantor
>Cantor Access Inc.
>acantor at cantoraccess.com
>www.cantoraccess.com
>
>You have received this announcement because you have expressed interest in
>my company's services or resources. Please write if you want to be removed
>from this mailing list: remove at cantoraccess.com

David Andrews and white cane Harry.