Microsoft has comitted to trying to make Visual Studio 2005 more accessible to screen readers. A screen reader is a program that assists those with vision impairments by reading what's on the screen. To make Visual Studio as accessible as possible, Microsoft needs feedback. The basic idea is to have "sighted" developers who are more or less familiar with the IDE experiment with the Beta and see which features are not reachable using only the keyboard.

Useful link: Visual Studio Accessibility Blog.

Participants

Step 1: Contact Me

Step 2: Install The Beta

If I haven't scared you off, go to the Visual Basic 2005 Beta 1 Web page and download or order the Beta. If you are an MSDN subscriber, you should have received the Beta or should receive it shortly. If you are not a subscriber, you should be able to order the Beta from the CD Ordering Page. The cost will be around $5 for shipping and handling. If you have a high-speed Internet connection, downloading may be faster but it's a big download so order the DVD/CD if you have a slow dialup modem.

If you don't think it's practical to get all of Visual Studio, use the Visual Basic Express product (although I don't know how much smaller it is).

Install the Beta and start testing. Pay particular attention to tasks you already know how to do from previous versions of Visual Basic. Because you already know how to do these tasks, you know what you need to do with VB 2005.

Step 3: Test

For just testing for keyboard functionality, I'd suggest the following things to look out for:

• Edit controls
  • That left and right cursor can traverse the different elements in a string
  • If it's a multi line edit, then up and down cursor will move between the different lines. (Note: the above is default behaviour for edit controls, but Microsoft may have sub classed them, so it's worth checking)
• List boxes and Combo boxes
  • If there's more than one entry in the list/combo box, that up and down cursor can move between the different entries.
• Right Mouse Button
  • That any menus brought up by clicking the right mouse button on an interface element, can be brought up by selecting that option via the keyboard and pressing the applications key.
• Dialogs
  • That all controls in a dialog, e.g. button, edit, list box, etc. can be accessed by pressing the tab key until the programatical focus indicates they are selected.
  • Same as above, but for the reverse tab sequence using shift + tab
• IDE Windows
• That all the windows in the IDE can be accessed from a menu option, usually under view or window on the top menu.

This should cover it. I've tested the following generic IDE components, and so it's just really the VB that needs testing, and as a C++ hacker, I will admit to not knowing the first thing about VB :-).

• Class Designer (Formally codenamed WhiteHorse)
• Solution Explorer
• All Help dialogs
• Top menu

Things not to test:

• App Wizard. This is HTML, and so JAWS will revert to VPC Cursor
• HTML Editor.

Can a feature be reached with the cursor keys, the TAB key, the cursor keys in conjunction with the ALT, CTRL, and SHIFT keys? Can a feature be reached using the menus, particularly the expanded and collapsing of the menus by using the keyboard? Can the Dialogue boxes be reached with the TAB key? can the user cursor up and down inside the dialogue box? Can the pop up menus be reached with the keyboard? and what about the drop down menus and elipses? or can they only be activated with the mouse? The screen reader may have an emulated mouse, but it is limited in what it can reach and do. Are there indicaters on the screen that are helpful to the sighted user, but would be missed by the visually impaired if they didn't know to look for them?

Above all, is the screen cluttered with docking windows for the colour pallet? The ToolBox, Watch Window, Debug Window, and the Property pages? or is the working form in the centre of the screen clearly marked with clear deviding lines from the rest of the environment? Can the Property pages ETC. be reached with the keyboard? That's a very important point if the visually impaired user is to make use of them to their fullest extent. Are there any areas inside the Property Pages ETC. that a user is likely to need regularly, occasionally and so on.

These are things that as a blind inexperienced user would want to know.

Step 4: Report Bugs and Suggestions

If you find an issue, please report it to Microsoft. Report bugs, issues with working from the keyboard, or any other suggestions that might make Visual Basic 2005 easier to use for the vision impaired or anyone else. This feedback page is for suggestions and requests as well as bug reports. Can you think of an easier way to do something? Report it!

Also please report the issue to me and I will post it here. I will post discussion if anyone wants to follow up on an issue (if things get too busy, I'll move this to a discussion group).

Remember, Keep In Touch!

If we get that far, I'll post summaries of what's been done and what hasn't so we know where to apply more effort.