Windows 7 beta reveals Magnifier access bug

Thursday, 15 January 2009 09:18

Windows 7, the forthcoming operating system replacement for Windows Vista, was released recently as a freely available beta test vision.  As mentioned in previous news articles, Windows 7 offers the first major upgrade to accessibility in nine years, with the introduction of a full-screen Magnifier and predictive text for the on-screen keyboard.  However, a bug in Magnifier has been discovered which may undo much of Microsoft’s good work in addressing access issues.

The bug occurs when a user tries to use the full screen Magnifier in combination with a high contrast colour scheme.  The Magnifier appears to be largely dependent on the Aero graphics engine, meaning that it works well when Aero colour themes are used.  However, when a user switches to a high contrast colour scheme such as High Contrast Black, the OS dumps the user back into the old Magnifier feature which, by default, shows a small magnification bar at the top of the screen.

The bug is due to the high contrast colour schemes being carried over since the release of Windows 95 fourteen years ago, and do not take advantage of the new graphics technologies which have been included in updated version of Windows.   

Given that a majority of people that require the full screen Magnifier feature will also want a high contrast colour scheme, this oversight will be disappointing to people with vision impairments, as all the tools needed for access are present, but expensive assistive technology products will still be required to use both high contrast and full screen magnification at the same time. 

If you wish to contact Microsoft and encourage them to create a compatible high contrast colour scheme, the best way is to download and install the Windows 7 beta and use the ‘send feedback’ feature.   The beta can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windows7 and will be available until 24 January 2009.