[nfbcs] Your thoughts on erosion of Windows accessibility

[Deborah Armstrong]

I'm new to the list but not new to I.T.: I started working as a blind programmer in the 1980s.

I am wondering if others share my frustration with this trend or if I'm just off-base. It seems like more and more applications are being made accessible in Windows at least with what seems to be excessive scripting. A script used to help make an application quicker to navigate and interact with. Now, it seems like without a script, some programs are completely inaccessible.

A few weeks ago, JAWS simply stopped being able to read outlook mail. I could arrow through the list of messages, but when I opened one, it behaved like documents do in Word when they arrive in protected mode: I couldn't read anything. I could still read mail with NVDA but it's more tedious to use in Outlook 2010.

After a lot of research, I discovered the problem was caused by an add-on for Outlook that had gotten corrupted. I had to remove and re-install it and then things were fine. The situation was complicated by the fact that the JAWS scripts depended on the availability of this add-on for their code to properly read messages. I figured I'd be able to still use Outlook without a script or an add-on, it just would be a bit less convenient.  I didn't even know that without a script that depended on an add-on I wouldn't even be able to read messages at all!

Another example: before Windows 7, any screen reader could review the entire screen with its mouse cursor. So with an unfamiliar application it was easy to locate and click on a control, label a graphic or just explore the layout of screens. I wrote many simple scripts for JAWS when I needed quick access to some control that wasn't keyboard-accessible.

But, now with Windows 7 the JAWS cursor, WindowEyes mouse cursor, or NVDA screen review can't explore everywhere. On a friends PC, I found the same problem with the Dolphin screen reader, so it seems like something happened in the operating system to prevent screen access software from reviewing the screen.

What's going on here and why does it seem more difficult to access programs, especially unfamiliar ones in modern versions of Windows? Am I missing something or do others feel there is a trend towards more limited accessibility from Microsoft?

--Debee
(Deborah Armstrong)