Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Paul James Reid

Nazia Zaman

Jason Anthony Grieves

Brett Humphrey

Brendan McKeon

Robert E Sinclair, Ii

Nicholas Wrem

Patricia Mary Wagoner

Douglas R Kirschner

Heather S Burns

Dmitri A Klementiev

Michael Allan Friedman

Seth Fox

Matthew B Karr

Michael Edward Dulac Winser

Gilma Annuska Perkins

Robert Sinclair

Niranjan Shivanand Baligar

Ramkumar Subramanian

Andres E Espinoza-Masias

Edward Sean Hayes

Donald Gary Funk

Vidhya Sriram

Stephanie Lyn Burg

Glenn Edgar Murphy, Iii

User interface information related to relevant events of interest is provided. Events can occur anywhere in a document, and may or may not be relevant to a user utilizing an assistive technology (AT) application, such as a screen reader. A provider-side signaling system component determines whether raised events are relevant to the user. In some examples, when an application makes a plurality of attribute changes in a document at once, the signaling provider batches the related events as a single transaction, and generates a generalized annotation describing the changes. The signaling provider further packages the event notification, and sends the event notification to a client-side signaling system component. The signaling client receives the notification, and determines whether to alert the user of the event(s) based on verbosity settings. The AT application is enabled to interpret the event notification and alert the user in a meaningful way.

Assistive technology notifications for relevant metadata changes in a document

A touch screen computing device with an easy to use user interface. The computing device provides on the touch screen a control area associated with a content viewing area. Touch inputs that initiate in the control area, even if they extend into the viewing area, are interpreted as commands that manipulate the display of content. Other touch inputs are interpreted as interactions with displayed content. The control area may be formatted to allow easy access by a user holding the computing device. Through such an interface the user may input commands specifying direct manipulation of the content, without frustration that can occur from the computing device incorrectly interpreting those commands as interaction with the content.

Control area for a touch screen

A magnifier movement system is described herein that provides a more user-friendly experience for users of natural input devices when moving the magnifier and interacting with magnified user interface elements. The system receives an indication that a user has touched the screen with a natural input device at a particular location. The system displays a drag control for moving the magnifier, but does not move the magnifier unless the user selects the drag control and moves the natural input device. If the drag control is unselected and the system receives additional natural input, then the system passes the input on to the magnified application. Thus, the magnifier movement system provides a more satisfying user experience for users of natural input-based computer systems and screen magnifiers.

Magnifier panning interface for natural input devices

Assistive buffer usage techniques are described. In one or more implementations, audio generated through text-to-speech conversion is output, the audio corresponding to text portioned in one of a plurality of buffers from an item of content. An input is received to rewind or fast forward the output of the audio. Responsive to the input, additional audio is output that was generated through text-to-speech conversion from text portioned in another one of the plurality of buffers.

Assistive buffer usage techniques

A commanding interface can provide an efficient computer interface for users of assistive technology by focusing on the tasks that an application can perform, rather than on the interface the application exposes. The commanding interface can provide a search mechanism that searches for and presents functions or functionality in response and dynamically updates results as the search query is entered. Additionally, the commanding interface can prioritize search results based on contextual data, including prior search terms, prior actions, and the context of the user's interaction with the application program. The commanding interface can enable the user to filter the functions and functionality presented through the commanding interface according to types of user-performed activities for which such functions would be utilized, patterns, or heuristically determined associations.

Accessible commanding interface

User interface elements are identified and cataloged into a user interface inventory database keyed on a global user interface element identifier. Information is collected for user interface elements activated in an executing application or applications. Scenario information is collected and is used to update the user interface inventory database. Scenario information includes information concerning user interface element usage, state changes, etc. in time. The described information can be collected over a period of time and from a number of different computer systems. The information can be analyzed to determine and quantify usage and testing of user interface elements. The analyzed information can be used to determine how thoroughly a user interface element has been tested, how often the user interface element works as expected, most commonly used user interface elements and other information. The collected information can be used to track, quantify and identify ownership of user interface elements.

User interface inventory

A multi-model magnification system is described that can be used with multiple forms of input, including natural input such as touch-based devices. Users can zoom in/out and pan with their preferred mode of interaction, including mouse, keyboard, pen, and touch interactions. The system provides dedicated features for some modes, such as pinch/scroll gestures for touch input, that allow users to easily zoom in/out and pan the magnified area (e.g., on a touch laptop). The system provides an interactive panning mode in which the user the user can interact with the desktop or applications (e.g., clicking on icons) and pan using special gestures. When the system is in the panning mode, the system consumes received gestures or other input, otherwise the system passes received input to a magnified application.

Multi-modal interaction for a screen magnifier

A magnifier panning system is described that creates a panning region at the edges of a magnified view. When a user moves the cursor into the panning region, the system pans the magnified view. When the user is not in the panning region, the user can interact with objects in the magnified view without the view shifting around. The objects appear magnified, but they do not behave or move any differently than they would if they were not magnified, providing the user with a familiar and comfortable user experience. Thus, the magnifier panning system provides the user with a much more natural view for interacting with the displayed objects while still allowing an efficient way to pan the view to move the magnified view to a different area of the screen.

Screen magnifier panning model with dynamically resizable panning regions

A method and system providing a client with user interface information are described. The method and system implement a set of application program interfaces for providing user interface information to a client through an accessibility system. The accessibility system includes a mechanism for transferring user interface information from a provider side to the client side and a logical tree for selectively revealing user interface information. The application program interface system includes client side application program interfaces for assisting the client in obtaining user interface information. The client side application program interfaces include an automation class, a logical element class, a raw element class, control pattern classes, and an input class. The provider side application program interfaces include a provider automation class, a provider automation interface, a raw element interface, and control pattern provider interfaces.

User interface automation framework classes and interfaces

A computing environment can dynamically respond to user preferences and personal abilities by enabling computer users to configure their computing experience by implicitly gathering information about the users' needs. The system can detect users' issues during the natural course of interaction with the system and offer to make adjustments to make their tasks simpler and more enjoyable. The system can allow for the configuration of settings that can impact users' abilities to receive important information from the system or provide input to the system.

Personalization of user accessibility options

Control patterns are used to describe functionality that may be exposed by one or more types of elements or controls. Functionality that is common among two or more types of elements is described by the same control pattern. Certain predefined methods, structures, properties, and/or events may be associated with a particular control pattern. Elements that support the control pattern, when queried, return an interface that describes those methods, structures, properties, and/or events. Control patterns are mutually exclusive in the functionality they represent, so they may be combined in arbitrary ways to expose the complete set of functionality offered by a particular control.

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Woodinville, WA, United States of America

Paul James Reid