Accessibility in other revamped and new UI in Access 2007

For Access 2007, we are adding a lot of new UI (e.g. a DBC replacement, new wizards), rewriting the UI from scratch while keeping some infrastructure (e.g. SUI, Field List) or revamping it to a lesser extent (e.g. Query Designer, Relationship Window).

The good news is that even for UI that we are "just" revamping (vs. introducing or rewriting), we're improving its accessibility. For example, Query Designers are now accessible since the bottom half is a grid - all grid windows (class "OGrid") are now exposed in MSAA, as we previously talked about - and the top half now has the table boxes exposed in MSAA. This also goes for the relationship window, where all the table boxes are now visible in MSAA.

For new and rewritten UI, they are all created accessible and that is considered a key (and required) feature in all of them. The SUI and all new wizards are accessible. Likewise, the Navigation Pane (NavPane) is exposed to MSAA, including "advanced" (as in, a lot of real-world implementations leave this out) functionality like selecting, extending selection and more. This is a major win for us in Access 2007.

Finally, we also did a lot of changed with regards to high contrast. Access 2007 should be able to provide a great experience for high contrast users. And this experience not only extends to the product itself, but to all of our templates, which should give a leg up for database developers to start right off the bet with solutions that are accessible and high contrast-friendly.