Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project

Result

[ADOD-Office-Applications-UI 7.1] Use all applicable operating system and accessibility standards and conventions that are important or essential to accessibility. The techniques for this checkpoint include references to checklists and guidelines for a number of platforms and to general guidelines for accessible applications.
ADOD Note: The Checkpoint is very general, and includes: Supporting relevant accessibility API(s); Web-based tools conforming to WCAG; Keyboard access; Providing keyboard shortcuts where recommended for a platform; Respecting platform settings (such as “high contrast” modes); and Providing documentation.

Mostly.

• Screen reader support is detailed in testing (see below).
• Most features are keyboard accessible.
• Shortcut keys are common across all OpenOffice applications.
• Can assign or edit shortcut keys for certain function categories.
• Respects platform settings including “high contrast” mode.

[ADOD-Office-Applications-UI 7.2] Allow the author to change the presentation within editing views without affecting the [office document]. This allows the author to edit the document according to personal requirements, without changing the way the document is rendered when published.

Yes. “Scaling” feature and support for high contrast settings.

[ADOD-Office-Applications-UI 7.3] Allow the author to edit all properties of each element and object in an accessible fashion.

Yes.

[ADOD-Office-Applications-UI 7.4] Ensure that the editing view allows navigation via the structure of the document in an accessible fashion.

Yes. Via the “Navigator” feature.

[ADOD-Office-Applications-UI 7.5] Enable editing of the structure of the document in an accessible fashion.

Yes. Via the “Navigator” feature.

[ADOD-Office-Applications-UI 7.6] Allow the author to search within editing views.

Yes. Via the “Find and Replace” feature.

VoiceOver OS X 10.6

Headings

No.

Table of contents

Yes. Links were not presented as such.

Image with “alt” text

No. VoiceOver did not report an image.

Table

Yes.  VoiceOver identified a table, but after interacting with the table it appeared to be empty. If you do not interact with the table and simply press the down arrow to access the table it is possible to use arrow keys, and tab / shift + tab to navigate the table. It is also possible to use (option + arrow keys) to navigate the table, which is a slightly improved experience over arrow keys alone.  VoiceOver does not report the row and column of the table where the cursor is located.

Formatted text

No.  VoiceOver does not appear to support  the text attributes function (control + option + t) in OpenOffice.

Change tracking

No. Ensured that Edit > Changes > Show was checked.

Numbered pages

Yes. Information available after interacting with the footer of each page.

Search function

Yes.  VoiceOver did not report what was typed into the search combo box, but did perform the search.

VoiceOver OS X 10.6

Create a new document

Yes.

Create two levels of headings

Yes. By selecting text, using the styles shortcut (cmd + t), and selecting the appropriate heading from the style list.

Add and then edit paragraph text (e.g. do a select-cut-paste)

Yes.

Insert an image

Yes. Using Insert > Picture > From file…  It does not appear possible to add alternative text, even when using the Format > Picture dialog with the picture selected (the dialog appeared to contain no accessible controls to modify the picture properties).

Insert a 3-by-3 table and fill it with content

No. It was possible to insert a table, it was not possible to reliably fill it with content. VoiceOver was inconsistent in whether it would find the table once created.  If VoiceOver did find the table it was possible to fill it with content. Adding content was unreliable as VoiceOver does not report row and column positioning for cells in the table.

Create a bullet list

Yes.

Use text formatting (bold, text colour)

Yes. It was possible to apply bold to text. It did not appear possible to apply color, the color picker did not appear to be accessible with VoiceOver.

Add page numbering

Yes. Using Insert > Fields > Page number

Insert a table of contents

Yes. The links were not identified as such.

Save document

Yes.

Other Comments by the Screen Reader Tester:

Generally speaking navigating the document was difficult and unreliable.  Each line began with VoiceOver speaking “Edit text”.  Navigating by line gave inconsistent results. Sometimes the focus would jump back to the top of the document. Pressing page down was not a reliable way of getting to the next page.

Table navigation was very non-intuitive for a VoiceOver user. VoiceOver users are accustomed to interacting with table and using VoiceOver commands to navigate the table.

At different times it was necessary to disable cursor tracking (control + option + shift + F3). Cursor tracking allows the focus to follow the VoiceOver virtual focus.  This appeared to have some undesirable results when navigating within toolbars.

The OpenOffice help documents are poorly accessible with VoiceOver, see below table bug.

See also VoiceOver table navigation bug http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=103230
See also list of keyboard shortcuts at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Porting_-_Keyboard_Shortcuts .
Note, not all shortcuts were tested and the listing is older and may be unreliable.