Jarret Cummings, a policy specialist for Educause, just blogged that “recent NFB testing has found that Google Apps still exhibit substantial, and in some cases new, accessibility problems”.  This was a follow on from a previous post in October where Jarrett considered Google’s announcements on accessibility investments.

Addressing accessibility is not only an important human challenge, it is also one that for many schools can carry significant legal penalties if not dealt with appropriately.  Witness the NFB’s complaint against Northwestern University and the joint Department of Justice and Education’s guidance on the procurement of book readers.  No vendor, including Microsoft, will ever be perfect as far as accessibility is concerned, but we have made the great strides over the years.

Microsoft has had a long track record of investments in enabling technologies across our product set.  If you take the components of Office 365 as just one example you will find detailed documentation on what we have done.  For those public institutions that need to comply with ADA/Section 508, the VPATs we have provided solutions for many years.

Exchange Online

VPAT

Exchange Server 2010 (Outlook Web Access)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/A/F/DAFC1999-4E3B-4DFB-BDA8-F43ED66A1520/Exchange_2010_VPAT.docx

WCAG 2.0

N/A

Further Reading

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691037.aspx

 

SharePoint Online

VPAT

SharePoint Foundation 2010 (end-user)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/C/B/2CB51FB9-EF38-4E2A-8ED1-E4E6B897103F/MicrosoftSharePointFoundation2010-VPAT.docx

SharePoint Server 2010 (administrator)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/C/B/2CB51FB9-EF38-4E2A-8ED1-E4E6B897103F/MicrosoftSharePointFoundation2010-VPAT.docx

WCAG 2.0

Conformance statement AA-level (SharePoint
  Foundation 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852105.aspx

Conformance statement A-level (SharePoint
  Foundation 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852106.aspx

 

Conformance statement AA-level (SharePoint
  Server 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852107.aspx

Conformance statement A-level (SharePoint
  Server 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852108.aspx

Further Reading

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?PageType=4&ListId={72C1C85B-1D2D-4A4A-90DE-CA74A7808184}&pID=431

 

Lync Online

VPAT

Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/A/7/DA714BC1-FCC0-4302-84EB-A8B857B5D42D/MicrosoftLync2010Attendee-VPAT.docx

Microsoft Lync 2010

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/B/A/9BA851F8-52E7-45D6-AF89-2244E721D547/MicrosoftLync2010_VPAT.docx

Microsoft Lync Web App VPAT

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/A/7/DA714BC1-FCC0-4302-84EB-A8B857B5D42D/MicrosoftLyncWebApp2010-VPAT.docx

WCAG 2.0

N/A

Further Reading

http://communicatorteam.com/archive/2010/10/06/Accessibility_Features_in_Lync_2010.aspx

 

Office

VPAT

All Office components

http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/products/section508/default.aspx

WCAG 2.0

N/A

Further Reading

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/office2010/

 

Office Web Applications

VPAT

Office Web Applications

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/C/B/2CB51FB9-EF38-4E2A-8ED1-E4E6B897103F/MicrosoftOfficeWeb%20Apps-VPAT.docx

WCAG 2.0

Conformance statement AA-level (Office Web
  Apps)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852098.aspx

Conformance statement A-level (Office Web
  Apps)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852097.aspx

Further Reading

http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/01/07/office-2010-accessibility-investments-document-accessibility.aspx