Accessibility features : Mashup Center 2.0 

Contents: Planning, installing, and configuring Mashup Center : Mashup Center 2.0

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Accessibility features help users who have a disability, such as restricted mobility or limited vision, to use information technology products successfully.

IBM strives to provide products with usable access for everyone, regardless of age or ability. This product uses standard Microsoft Windows navigation keys.

Accessibility features

The following list includes the major accessibility features that are supported in Mashup Center:

• Keyboard-only operation
• Interfaces that are commonly used by screen readers
• Interfaces that do not require style sheets to be read by screen readers
• Keys that are discernible by touch but do not activate just by touching them
• Industry-standard devices for ports and connectors
• The attachment of alternative input and output devices
• Provides alternative text for all <image> elements, if the element is meaningful
• Uses null alternate text on layout images that alternate text should ignore
• Uses the summary attribute of the <table> element to give an overview of data tables, for example the tables used in the Data Viewer and Chart widgets
  
  

The product documentation for Mashup Center 2.0 is accessibility-enabled. The original, IBM-authored documentation is located in the Mashup Center information center and also in the Product documentation category in the Mashup Center wiki .

Note: For a richer experience, we recommend that you use new versions of browsers and screen readers, for example Firefox 3.0 or higher and JAWS 10.0 or higher.

Keyboard navigation

This product is designed to use standard Microsoft Windows navigation keys. See the following list for details:

• Screen reader users can press Alt + Shift + S to bypass navigation on the Mashup Center user interface and skip directly to the main content.
• When previewing embedded pages and widgets, users can press Alt + Shift + A to select and clear the Always open preview by default option. Users can press Alt + Shift + C to close the preview window.
• When configuring the User Input widget, focus may get trapped in the grid that displays the field names, types, and actions. In this case, users can press Alt + Shift + C to cancel the action or Alt + Shift + S and then Enter to save their work and close the window.
• When using a screen reader, the data mashup builder contains a hidden navigation menu with the following access keys:
• Alt + Shift + A moves focus to the action bar
• Alt + Shift + O moves focus to the operator list
• Alt + Shift + C moves focus to the main builder window
  
  
• After a page has finished loading in the browser, JAWS may still be loading the page into its virtual buffer. You should wait until JAWS announces the number of headings and links and starts reading before interacting with the page. If you attempt to interact with the page before JAWS completely finishes loading the page, you may get inconsistent results.

Also, sometimes the JAWS virtual buffer does not load the page at all or only partially loads it. These are known JAWS issues. As a workaround, press INSERT + Z in your browser to change the cursor mode to Virtual PC mode. This allows JAWS to read the content on the page as a continuous stream.

• Certain widgets such as the Data Viewer widget allow you to configure the data source as the URL of a feed in the catalog. In the configuration window of these widgets, you can either paste in the URL of the feed in the Data source URL field or click a Browse button and select the feed from a dialog box. Users who are navigating the user interface using a keyboard cannot use the second option, which is to browse the catalog using the dialog box. As a workaround, open the catalog, locate the feed that you want to use as a data source, copy the URL, and then paste it into the Data source URL field in the configuration window of the widget.
• When using the default wizards to create widgets in the widget builder, you may notice that the preview pane that displays the data gets focus before the configuration part of the window. As a workaround, press the Tab key to return to the configuration area.
• When using JAWS, sometimes the reader tells you to press the space bar to activate a button. However, sometimes you must actually press the Enter key to activate the button.
  
  

Interface information

See the following accessibility information about the Mashup Center user interface:

• The Mashup Center user interface provides long link titles to provide important information for users. In order for screen readers to read the fully descriptive titles of links, we recommend that users configure their screen reader applications to support long link text.
• When using Firefox, sometimes items in focus on the user interface do not have a complete box drawn around them in high-contrast mode.
• Often times, content on the user interface changes dynamically, depending on the action taken by the user. For example, if a user tries to log in with an incorrect user name or password, Mashup Center will display a pop-up window with an error message. Because dynamic updates are not recognized by screen readers. users must read the page again in order to be aware of the updates.
• Users can configure the Web Site Displayer widget to display any Web Site with a valid URL. Users should note that these Web sites are considered third-party software and may not be accessible.
• When using Firefox 3.0, JAWS users who use the browser's default style cannot read JavaScript alert messages. This is a bug in Firefox and is expected to be fixed in a future release.
• The Navteq Map widget displays content from a third-party, open-source Web site. This site may not meet all accessibility requirements.
• After setting your browser to high-contrast mode for easier readability, certain Mashup Center dialog boxes may still display fonts in their original size. As a workaround, you can configure additional settings on the browser to display fonts in a larger size.
• For Internet Explorer, go to View -> Text Size, and select a larger font size. Next, go to Tools -> Internet Options, click Accessibility, and select Ignore font sizes specified on webpages in the dialog box.
• For Firefox and Safari, to increase the font size, press the Ctrl and + keys at the same time. To decrease the font size, press the Ctrl and - keys at the same time
  
  
• When using Firefox 3.0, certain screen readers may not recognize the names of widgets on a mashup page. As a workaround, upgrade to Firefox 3.5.
• When using a screen reader to read the text on buttons, if the text displays as a truncated string on the button on the Mashup Center interface, you may not be able to hear the entire string. As a workaround, use Firefox 3.5 and a newer version of a screen reader, for example JAWS 10. For older browsers, reduce the size of the font in the browser settings so that the text fits onto the button. For example, Firefox 3.0, you can open the View menu, select Zoom Text Only, and then press the Ctrl and - keys at the same time as many times as necessary to reduce the font size so that you can hear entire strings.
• When working with a page that uses a columned theme, you can use the arrow keys to move the column dividers left or right. However, JAWS currently cannot read the direction that the column is moving toward or tell you the size of the resized column.
  
  

Vendor software

Mashup Center includes certain vendor software that is not covered under the IBM license agreement. IBM makes no representation about the accessibility features of these products. Contact the vendor for the accessibility information about its products.

IBM and accessibility

See the IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center for more information about the commitment that IBM has to accessibility: