Johar: A Framework for Developing Accessible Applications

James Andrews and Fatima Hussain

Eleventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility - Posters and Demos (ASSETS 2009)
Pittsburgh, PA, USA, October 26-28, 2009

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Summary

We describe the design and implementation of the Johar framework, which supports the development of applications that are accessible to users with a wide range of abilities. A user of Johar applications chooses an ``interface interpreter'' that best suits their abilities and needs, and then uses it to interact with all Johar applications; thus improvements in interface interpreters improve access to all applications, and improvements in applications are accessible to all users.

Interface interpreters and applications are written by developers using the support facilities provided by the Johar package. An application consists of an application engine, and an ``interface definition file'' that the interface interpreter uses to determine how to mediate between the user and the application.

In this paper, we describe our goals for Johar, and the framework we have developed for supporting application and interface interpreter development. We also describe the applications developed so far, the four interface interpreters developed so far, and the further development planned for the near future.

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