Resolution 2011-03

Regarding the Lack of Accessibility Requirements in Apple Products

WHEREAS, Apple has made VoiceOver, a free and powerful screen access 
program, an integral part of many of its products, including the Apple 
Macintosh, the
iPhone, the iPod Touch, Apple TV, and the iPad; and

WHEREAS, VoiceOver has the potential of offering unprecedented nonvisual 
access to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of applications that are 
today available
for these platforms; and

WHEREAS, through presentations at developer conferences, specific 
guidance issued through programming guides, and application programming 
interfaces that
are simple to implement, Apple has made it relatively easy for 
application developers to incorporate basic accessibility features in 
their programs for
VoiceOver users; and

WHEREAS, Apple has clearly stated its desire to provide accessible 
products to blind people and has even received an award from the 
National Federation
of the Blind for its work in making its products accessible to the 
blind; and

WHEREAS, despite Apple's efforts to encourage accessibility by such 
examples as publishing a wealth of information providing clear and 
unambiguous guidance
to application developers to help them make their software accessible to 
VoiceOver users, too many applications are still not accessible to the 
blind because
of buttons that are not properly labeled, icons whose meanings cannot be 
understood, and images of text which VoiceOver cannot interpret; and

WHEREAS, one example of an application with controls that are not 
accessible to the blind is the AT&T Navigator, which contains several 
screens with buttons
that VoiceOver identifies only as "Button"; and

WHEREAS, labeling buttons, menus, checkboxes, and other controls so that 
VoiceOver can identify them is neither a technological impossibility nor 
an unreasonably
costly effort, and even the most visually intensive application should 
have menus, buttons, and other controls that can be operated 
nonvisually; and

WHEREAS, Apple is not shy about placing requirements and prohibitions on 
application developers: for example, developers who use their 
applications to sell
products must turn over a percentage of their sales to Apple, and 
application developers cannot display an application-specific desktop; 
and

WHEREAS, regrettably Apple does not require application developers to 
make their applications accessible to users of its VoiceOver program; 
and

WHEREAS, accessibility to all users of Apple products should be as 
important as the other criteria on which Apple bases its decisions to 
accept or reject
applications: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention 
assembled this seventh day of July, 2011, in the city of Orlando, 
Florida, that this
organization express its frustration and deep disappointment with Apple 
for allowing the release of applications that contain icons, buttons, 
and other
controls that cannot be identified by the blind user of VoiceOver, 
thereby rendering them nonvisually inaccessible; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge Apple, in the 
strongest possible terms, to work with the National Federation of the 
Blind to create and
enforce a set of requirements for accessibility that will, at a minimum, 
compel application developers to label buttons, menus, icons, selection 
lists,
checkboxes, and other controls so that VoiceOver users can identify and 
operate them.