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Accessible Java Application User Interface Design Guidelines

By Lawrence J. Najjar, Ph.D.

Builders of Java applications need guidelines to help them design and develop accessible user interfaces. A good foundation for developing accessibility guidelines is the United States federal government’s comprehensive Section 508 procurement regulation for accessible, interactive software applications. This paper lists each of the relevant Section 508 accessibility requirements for interactive software applications. After each requirement, the paper provides detailed, concrete guidelines for designing and developing Java user interfaces that conform to the accessibility requirements.

Most accessible software user interface design requirements, such as the United States Section 508 software procurement regulation (General Services Administration, 2005), focus on the Web. Likewise, most accessible software design resources and tools, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (World Wide Web Consortium, 2005) and Bobby(Watchfire, 2005), focus on Web user interfaces.

However, many user interface designers work on highly interactive, very complex Java applications. These designers have very few resources and tools to help make their Java applications accessible. For example, there is very little guidance on how to meet the very broad Section 508 accessibility requirements for software applications.

This paper lists each of the Section 508 accessibility requirements for software applications. The two major, most relevant Section 508 sections are:

Paragraph 1194.21 Software applications and operating systems
Paragraph 1194.31 Functional performance criteria.

After each accessibility requirement, the paper describes what designers and developers can do to conform to the requirement.

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