Here's some thoughts I passed on to Project Possibility about why Mozilla is a such a great project to work on for Open Accessibility experience and creating accessibility tools:
- basic web accessibility standards
- WAI-ARIA for web apps
- Firefox add-ons
- XULRunner for cross platform rich clients
- Prism for easy access to accessible web apps.
- grease monkey
- Core accessibility code
- supports most a11y APIs: ATI-SPI, MSAA, IA2 (Mac?)
- links with the main Open a11y projects including GNOME, Orca and NVDA
- links with proprietary AT like WindowEyes and Jaws.
- links with W3C, open a11y and others working in accessibility space
- example of large project architecture (code, build and organisation)
- proven large scale OS development practices to learn from
- largest OSS project community with *many* enthusiastic users
- some very smart and approachable people work on Mozilla
- synergy with Seneca College Mozilla work
- Commitment to the Open Web
That's some compelling ways that Mozilla is a great platform for accessibility and an awesome legacy from Aaron's hard work.
As web accessibility become more vital for everyday activities it's good to have student energy input and students will get great relevant software experience.
Keywords: Accessibility, assistive technology, education, Mozilla, oats, software development, student