Current Developments for Mobility Impairments

As part of the DACX Project, several members have investigated the feasibility of incorporating accessibility features for people with mobility impairments directly into the "device-independent" layer of the X server, thus making the features available on almost all the major manufacturers and vendors of X workstations. DACX members developed a working prototype using the X Window System (X11R5) on Digital, IBM, and SUN workstations and supplied this working prototype to the X Consortium. The functionality will become part of a more generic keyboard extension included in the next release of X (X11R6), scheduled for release in the spring of 1994. To assist people with mobility impairments, the strategies used in the prototype make the standard input devices (keyboard and mouse) more "friendly", and include the following features:

• StickyKeys assists individuals who cannot press more than one key at a time, preventing them from using most programs that require multiple simultaneous key presses. Many times, this is the only major computer access barrier for people who type with a mouthstick or headpointer.

• RepeatKeys assists individuals with poor coordination that results in slow or irregular response time, making time-dependent typing difficult. These individuals find themselves generating numerous unwanted key repetitions simply because they cannot release a key before it starts to repeat.

• SlowKeys and BounceKeys assist individuals with limited eye/finger (eye/stick) coordination who often strike unwanted keys before targeting the desired key. Those individuals who have hand tremors, eye/hand coordination difficulty, or utilize a headpointer or mouthstick often may spend more time trying to delete unwanted keys than selecting the desired key.

• MouseKeys assists individuals who lack fine motor control, have paralysis, tremors, or using a mouthstick or headpointer for computer input, who may not be able to control a pointing device such as the mouse or joystick with fine enough movements. MouseKeys also assists people who can move the mouse but can't activate the mouse buttons while simultaneously maneuvering it.

• SerialKeys assists individuals with more severe physical disabilities, who are often unable to access a computer even when modifications to the standard input devices are available. These individuals require some mechanism to connect and use an alternate input device(s) to emulate the standard keyboard or mouse. SerialKeys, while not planned to be a part of the X server, will evolve as a separate X client (software program).

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