What does Firefox accessibility mean to users in need of assistive technologies?

Firefox is the first open-source web browser to offer access to its content and widgets to assistive technologies for varying groups of people with disabilities. As such, it offers the possibility to directly support open-source and proprietary assistive technologies on various platforms, allowing a broader range of users access to the web content today. Other open-source and proprietary browser vendors are following Mozilla's lead in the implementation and standardization of accessibility in Web 2.0/AJAX applications because Mozilla has proven to be a reliable platform with visinary new concepts that work well for the user.

So, what's all the fuzz about?

All marketing and tech talk aside, this session is aimed to give you a hands-on, real-life, non-abstract feel for what accessibility means to users of Mozilla products.

We will be demoing things as simple as a Google search, a number of extensions tremendously helping with accessibility, and show some really cool stuff you can do with rich web content.

In addition, you in the audience are welcome to bring your computer and experiment with Firefox talking to you as well. Pretend that you don't have a touchpad or mouse and need to rely on keyboard access alone to drive Firefox. Listen to the output the open-source screen reader such as NVDA or Orca screen readers give you on Windows and Linux respectively. Orca already comes with the GNOME desktop, and NVDA can be installed risk-free on any Windows PC or VM.