To support accessibility goals, Forms should have the following capabilities:

• A screen reader should have access to the value and prompt for each item, so that a screen reader user can hear it. It is referred here as speakable prompt.
• All functionality should be accessible from the keyboard only, so that a user does not have to manipulate a mouse or other pointer device.
• All color usage should be under the control of the user, so that a user with low vision can see all of the content.
• There should be no reliance on timed functions, so that a user does not need to respond in a set amount of time.
• Flashing or animations should be avoided, or if present allow a mode that disables them.
• Oracle Forms provides sufficient attributes to meet these accessibility requirements, namely:
• When an item takes focus, Oracle Forms passes the current value, the speakable prompt and other attributes of the item to a screen reader.
• Every item is operable from the keyboard, either by allowing navigation to it or allowing invocation via access keys.
• Every item can specify automatic as the color at design time, so that at runtime, the right color is chosen from the user's control panel settings.

For issues of timed responses and animations, it is advised that they should simply be excluded from any screen design.

Using the bell built-in as an only indicator of an error is allowed. The operating system typically has some kind of accessibility option for sound such as SoundSentry that generates visual warnings when the system makes a sound.

For any BeanAreas that are coded within a form, the general principles outlined above need to be extended as appropriate to the Java code.

The following topics are included: