Evaluating AAX Plug-Ins for Accessibility

[Ask the Developer Guy]

Dear Avid Community Members,

Avid has recently enjoyed the opportunity to work with visually impaired audio professionals to improve VoiceOver support for Pro Tools, and we want to keep these improvements coming. Just as importantly, we want to encourage our Connectivity Partners (our new collective name for all third party technology developers) to follow suit. In working with this team, we drafted a plug-in accessibility rating system that we will soon finalize and share with third parties. It is our hope that the blind user community will come to score AAX plug-ins based on this framework or something similar. Here is the working rating system, for which you are welcome to provide input:

AAX plug-in is rated from 1 to 5 with 5 representing “strong agreement” for the following criteria:

1. Plug-in can be installed and its license authorized without sighted assistance.
2. Plug-in can be registered without sighted assistance
3. Plug-in supports Pro Tools standard methodology for save/load of presets or employs a proprietary substitute that supports VoiceOver
4. All user-controllable parameters are speakable with VoiceOver
5. Plug-in contains accurate page tables for Avid control surfaces compatible with Pro Tools 11 or higher
6. Connectivity Partner makes customer-facing statement in support of accessibility and provides contact information for related inquiries.

So, let us know what you think, and together, we can make accessibility a “first class citizen” on the roadmaps of as many Connectivity Partners as possible.

Gratefully,

Ed Gray
Director, Partnering Programs | Product Management
Avid

[Craig F]

interesting