How do I Develop 508 Compliant Software for Java?

Accessiblity means giving access to all clients

Section 508, an amendment to the United States Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973, became law on June 21st, 2001. If you supply services or good to U.S. federal agencies or you are a subcontractor providing the same, your website must meet certain criteria to allow clients who are visually or physically impaired to navigate and use the site's functions. In general it's good business to provide this level of accessibility, as your current and future customers may have disabilities. The Java programming language provides specific functions to build client interfaces that meet the regulations.

Instructions

1. Use the Java Accessibility API, short for application programming interface, to allow data to pass back and forth between your Java components and assistive technologies that either exist in the computer system or are installed as third-party applications. This includes screen readers or magnifiers.

2. Use the Java Accessibility Utilities Package that comes with Java to build listeners for the assistive technologies so that they are aware when events happen on the screen. Use the utilities to load the required technologies in the same Java virtual machine as your application; this is a requirement if the listeners are to work.

3. Use the Java Accessibility Bridge to Native Code to allow your Java application to communicate with non-Java assistive code. Java runs on many different platforms, each of which supports numerous programming languages. A bridge must exist for the specific programming language/operating system being used.

4. Use the plug-and-play capabilities of the Java Foundation Classes to allow the definition of assistive technologies by user. By splitting out the actual interface from how it interacts, it's possible to allow the client to define whether they would like to work with the application in a mode designed for someone who is legally blind, partially visually impaired or physically handicapped.

Tips & Warnings

• If your application is not using Java in the user interface, then building a 508 compliant website is a matter of following the rules for building a web application in HTML.

References

• ORACLE: Java Accessibility Overview
• ORACLE: Java SE Desktop Accessibility
• E-Commerce Guide: Are you 508 Compliant?; Alexis Gutzman; 2001

Resources

• ORACLE: Java Accessiblity Utilities
• Breakthrough Design: Section 508 Compliance in Plain English
• ORACLE: Java Accessiblity API Javadocs