[Athen] Office365 accessibility issues

[Ron Stewart]

Good afternoon, given the discussion on several lists I felt it my
obligation to inform all about the accessibility issues of the MS
(Microsoft) Office365 product. Many of your campuses are deploying it as an
alternative to investing in the full MS Office product for your campuses. It
also seems to be looked at, by some, as an alternative to the accessibility
issues with the Google Apps platform. Unfortunately that does not seem to be
the case.

 

Thanks to all who have contributed to substantiating what I had already
found to be a very problematic product. Here is a summary of the basic
issues at this point.

 

1. The product login is problematic for almost all currently available
Windows based screen readers. It is totally unusable on the Mac OS.

2. Moving across multiple devices is problematic, if not impossible for most
users unable to see the screen or use a mouse.

3. The system provides no accessibility on the MAC OS or iOS with VoiceOver.
This is typical of all MS products on the Mac platforms.

4. Chrome users will find the system unusable since you are relying on the
Chrome based accessibility components to provide your access.

 

All of these issues have been taken to the appropriate vendors and I will
attempt to pass on relevant solutions as they come forward.  There are
solutions for the MS platforms, but they require a level of technical
competence that most of our end users do not have and have also shown to be
somewhat unreliable.

 

Ron Stewart

 

****************************************************************************
***

Ron Stewart

Managing Consultant

Altformat Solutions LLC

 

8300 West Weller St

Yorktown, IN 47396

Mobile: 609 213-2190

Fax: 765 405-1484

 

ron at altformatsolutions.com

www.altformatsolutions.com

 

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