Overview of Accessibility

Microsoft is committed to making computers easier to use for everyone, including individuals with disabilities. In recent years, Microsoft has established close relationships with users who have disabilities, organizations representing disabled individuals, workers in the rehabilitation field, and software developers who create products for this market. Based on their combined input, Microsoft has defined specific design goals for Windows 98:

Continue to integrate and improve the Windows 95 features that compensate for difficulties some individuals have in using the keyboard or the mouse.
Continue to make the visual user interface easier to customize for people with limited vision.
Provide additional visual feedback for users who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Provide new application programming interfaces (APIs) and "hooks" for independent software vendors (ISVs) developing accessibility aids, including those that allow blind individuals to use Windows.
Make information on accessibility solutions more widely available, and increase public awareness of these issues.

Windows 98 offers several enhancements designed to meet these accessibility goals. The primary improvements in accessibility for Windows 98 from previous versions of Windows are:

Scalable user interface elements, including large and extra-large mouse cursors.
An expanded selection of high-contrast color schemes designed to address various forms of vision impairment.
Visual cues to tell the user when the application is making sounds.
Notification to other applications when the user has limited vision, needs additional keyboard support because of difficulty using a mouse, or wants visual captions to be displayed for speech or other sounds.
Notification to other applications when they should modify behavior to be compatible with accessibility software utilities running in the system.
Audible prompts during Setup for users who have low vision.

In addition to enhancing the accessibility features available through Control Panel, Windows 98 introduces two new accessibility tools:

The Accessibility Wizard, which makes it easier for users and administrators to set up accessibility options by selecting from examples instead of having to change numeric values or individual settings in Control Panel.
The Magnifier, a limited-function screen enlarger that makes Windows easier to see for users with low vision and for users who require occasional screen magnification for such specific tasks as editing art.