PD ISO IEC TR 13066 — Information Technology Interoperability with Assistive Technology (Accessibility API) Technical Report Series

📐 PD ISO IEC TR 13066 is a series of Published Documents issued by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in the form of Technical Reports (TR), corresponding to ISO/IEC TR 13066. The series addresses the accessibility domain, systematically describing the accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow assistive technologies (such as screen readers, speech recognition, magnification tools and alternative input devices) to access application user interfaces in mainstream operating systems and graphical environments. By harmonising descriptions of these APIs, the series helps developers write applications that assistive technologies can access, improving the information-technology experience of people with disabilities and older users.

1. Series Overview 📌

The ISO/IEC TR 13066 series was prepared within ISO/IEC JTC 1 related committees; UK participation was entrusted to Technical Committee ICT/-/6 (ICT Accessibility). Technical Reports (TR) provide descriptive guidance, not mandatory requirements. Each part describes the structure, architecture, usage and key interfaces of the accessibility API for a particular operating system/environment, helping assistive-technology vendors and application developers interoperate. The series complements ISO/IEC 13066-1 and accessibility guidelines such as WCAG to form the technical basis for IT accessibility.

2. Structure and Technical Highlights 🧩

The series mainly comprises the following parts, summarised by number, topic and core content.

3. Key Technical Requirements 🔥

3.1 Windows accessibility API (Part 2)

Windows offers several accessibility interfaces: the older Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), later developed into UI Automation (UIA), bridged by IAccessibleEx. The part describes the overall structure, object model, properties and event mechanisms of these interfaces, and how assistive technologies enumerate windows, read control properties, listen for state changes and send actions to controls, enabling interoperability with applications.

3.2 IAccessible2 accessibility API (Part 3)

IAccessible2 extends Microsoft MSAA, filling gaps in expressing rich text, tables, documents and complex controls, and is widely used for accessibility support in cross-platform applications (e.g. browsers, office suites). The part describes its architecture, user interface element model, getting and setting focus, and how assistive technologies use the API.

3.3 Linux/UNIX graphical environment accessibility API (Part 4)

Linux/UNIX desktop environments typically use ATK (Accessibility Toolkit) and AT-SPI (Accessibility Service Provider Interface) as the accessibility infrastructure. The part describes ATK-aware toolkits, the accessibility service provider interface, object hierarchy and event mechanisms, and how applications and assistive technologies interact through the system bus.

3.4 Java accessibility API (Part 6)

The Java platform exposes the Accessibility API through the java.awt.accessibility package, allowing Java components to provide accessible information to assistive technologies. The part (scanned) describes the structure, interfaces and typical usage of the Java Accessibility API, helping Java applications implement accessibility support.

4. Engineering Practice 🛠️

• 🔍 Application accessibility implementation: set accessible name, role, state and value for user interface controls per the platform API, and trigger the correct events.
• 📊 Assistive-technology compatibility: run compatibility tests with mainstream screen readers, speech recognition and magnification tools to verify usable interaction flows.
• 📐 Cross-platform consistency: use consistent semantics across Windows, Linux/UNIX and Java to avoid differing behaviour for the same function on different platforms.
• 📋 Regulatory compliance: evaluate against accessibility standards such as WCAG to satisfy relevant regulations and procurement requirements.

5. FAQ ❓