The Accessibility Interoperability Alliance, AIA (http://www.accessinteropalliance.org) has been formed from some of the World’s biggest technology companies: Adobe, BayFirst Solutions, HP, Microsoft, and Novell. Included in the founding of this alliance are a number of specialist assistive technology companies: Claro Software, Dolphin Computer Access, GW Micro, HiSoftware, Mandentec, TextHelp Systems and Qualilife.
The new alliance plans to work together to increase interoperability between new and existing technologies, design new solutions, increase accessibility innovation, and improve developer guidelines. The initial project in this alliance is to create a standard for keyboard shortcuts so that users will have consistent behavior of AT products in any web browser.
This alliance is a key step to building a collaborative base of technologies and guidelines for development. Just this step can help increase the consistency for all users in their web and software experience. Additional development and bringing in of new companies and technologies will only help the assistive technology user, and also create a better experience as a whole.
Great to hear about this progress in the area of standards and consistency. The attention that accessibility is getting from larger companies (through the AIA initiative, for example) reflects a broader view of the market for AT tools. Apart from improving accessibility of commonly used products directly, the broader view of the market may benefit smaller AT innovators. At NCTI (National Center for Technology Innovation) we often hear that generating funding for AT development projects is a big challenge. The idea that accessibility can be embodied in products used by many people may help AT developers to create markets and generate funding for their innovations.
Comment by David H — January 2, 2008 @ 5:48 pm