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Thread: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange

Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)

From: Kara Zirkle
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2008 8:30AM
Subject: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
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Hello,

I am finding that the free email rush of Google and Microsoft Exchange is
hitting the higher education environment quickly. Both emails provide
productive functionality for a college student, I'm more concerned about the
accessibility view of things. While looking at the two applications, I do
not see much information on Google Accessibility. Where Microsoft Exchange
has a Light version of email but even then has some functionality taken away
that of what their "regular" Exchange offers. So my question is where do we
draw a line and say which is the more accessible version for our students
when neither are really very accessible? I would love to talk to
universities, colleges and users of either of these free email systems in
higher education in regard to accessibility pros and cons. I would like to
discuss further how different universities and colleges came to their
decision between the two or others based upon accessibility. Any
information is much appreciated.

Thank you,

Kara Zirkle

IT Accessibility Coordinator

Assistive Technology Initiative

Thompson Hall RM 114 MS: 6A11

Fairfax Campus

4400 University Drive

Fairfax, VA 22030

Phone: 703-993-9815

Fax: 703-993-4743

http://www.gmu.edu/accessibility/ati/home.html

From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2008 9:40AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

> Kara Zirkle

> I am finding that the free email rush of Google and Microsoft
> Exchange is
> hitting the higher education environment quickly. Both emails provide
> productive functionality for a college student, I'm more
> concerned about the
> accessibility view of things.

Kara,

my pragmatic view on this would be: as long as you also provide POP3 (or even better IMAP) access to the email accounts, students may choose to use their own desktop-based email reader, which stands a chance of being more accessible (with regards to things like screen reader access, support for the OS' colour schemes - e.g. high-contrast themes - etc).

Note that this is not my department/remit, so I'm just speaking as myself...this may not be the official position of our university.

Patrick

From: Kara Zirkle
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2008 11:20AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
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Both Programs do offer IMAP and POP, however it is not just email that I'm
looking at. Each offer a series of their own applications such as online
"storage", real time portal access such as live meeting and web creation.
However these are not being looked at from an accessibility view. I can
understand real time not having the ability to be accessible since it is
students making real time changes to documents, however the simplicity of
making the website accessible for the online storage or having built in
capabilities of tagging things on the website if you have a web creation
tool is more of my concern. Has anyone looked at either of these
applications as an entire product?

Thanks,

Kara Zirkle
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Assistive Technology Initiative
Thompson Hall RM 114 MS: 6A11
Fairfax Campus
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-9815
Fax: 703-993-4743
http://www.gmu.edu/accessibility/ati/home.html

From: Tech
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2008 12:20PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<title></title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<<Kara Zirkle wrote: 
...Has anyone looked at either of these applications as an entire
product?>>
<blockquote cite="mid:008101c8e5d4$a7b5b4f0$f7211ed0$@edu" type="cite"></blockquote>
Kara, 
 
I don't have a solution for Gmail, GDocs or Exchange problems, in the
here and now, but i really think the problem is much greater than those
few applications.  It's a systemic problem across the web.  Google has
been working for years to integrate its various products with one
another.  That in itself is a huge job. Many of these applications were
never meant to be inter operable, and they have to often bolt
accessibility patches onto their products retroactively, with brute
force, while competitors are breathing down their necks.   On a scale
of 1-10, accessibility issues are usually about a -5.  Unless they see
a compelling legal or commercial reason to focus on them, they become
just one more todo item on an ever expanding road map. 
Naturally, just like browser makers who swear they are dedicated to
supporting standards (but aren't really), the big players will never
admit this, and swear they would like to help out.  But even when their
intentions are pure, just as they start focusing on such issues, some
new web2.0+ toy comes down the pike, and they rush into a new interface
or application, and the code and javascript all has to be readjusted
for the accessibility issues.  And some things are just not possible to
do easily, no matter their willingness to do them.   
 
Right now, there is no comprehensive Javascript
framework for supporting common menu
navigation, toolbar actions, and other typical things that need
keyboard, mouse, and assistive device support. Each developer does it
anew, and often incompletely (or not cross platform).   I have seen
some developers of well-known frameworks openly admit that such support
was a low priority, or just not interesting to them. To my
knowledge, only Bindows ever applied themselves aggressively to
accessibility issues, but their product is proprietary, and not that
widely
used, and I've never really researched how much their reality matched
their claims. 
 
I am sure that most developers would really like to provide the
support.  It's
just too hard to do, with present level toolkits.  Solve that, and many
issues go away.   I think that next generation programming tools like <a
href="http://ui.jquery.com">JQuery</a><a href="http://ui.jquery.com"> </a>could
help a lot.  If someone isn't already doing it, I believe it would make
a lot of sense for the accessibility community, perhaps led by WebAIM,
to work with John Resig, and/or others in the Jquery community, to find
JQuery programmers who can solve some of these issues generically, and
make the tools available as a basic library which all sites, large and
small, can easily deploy in their applications.   It's such a huge
area, that sponsors could probably be found for such initiatives. 
 
Perhaps there are some already doing this, but I have not heard of it. 
I have no notable standing in the Accessibility or Jquery communities
to do more than make the suggestion.  But there are many who do have
such standing, and I am sure they can be engaged to discuss it. I would
be happy to try and organize a deeper discussion of it, if someone set
up a list of forum to do it. 
 
 
 
 
Kara Zirkle wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:008101c8e5d4$a7b5b4f0$f7211ed0$@edu" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Both Programs do offer IMAP and POP, however it is not just email that I'm
looking at. Each offer a series of their own applications such as online
"storage", real time portal access such as live meeting and web creation.
However these are not being looked at from an accessibility view. I can
understand real time not having the ability to be accessible since it is
students making real time changes to documents, however the simplicity of
making the website accessible for the online storage or having built in
capabilities of tagging things on the website if you have a web creation
tool is more of my concern. Has anyone looked at either of these
applications as an entire product?

Thanks,

Kara Zirkle
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Assistive Technology Initiative
Thompson Hall RM 114 MS: 6A11
Fairfax Campus
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-9815
Fax: 703-993-4743
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.gmu.edu/accessibility/ati/home.html">http://www.gmu.edu/accessibility/ati/home.html<;/a>

From: ~G~
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2008 2:20PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

This is the major hurdle that WAI-ARIA is and will hopefully solve.
Creating accessibility solutions for the RIA's which include javascript
frameworks/applications such as what Google is doing.

I would say that that the js framework that supports ARIA more complete,
will be the one to get behind, support and work with in creating accessible
RIA solutions.

Michael

From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2008 2:30PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

~G~ wrote:
> This is the major hurdle that WAI-ARIA is and will hopefully solve.
> Creating accessibility solutions for the RIA's which include javascript
> frameworks/applications such as what Google is doing.
>
>
Yes and no. the Danger there is that ARIA becomes a silver bullet. While
it is true that ARIA is there to bridge the gap between HTML and RIA and
get asssistive technology support as a freebie it is not an excuse to
build applications that assume your browser can do things instead of
testing for them.

> I would say that that the js framework that supports ARIA more complete,
> will be the one to get behind, support and work with in creating accessible
> RIA solutions.
>
Yes, the bigger issue is however the browser support. As long as we are
stuck with IE6, ARIA is not a solution. We need to clean out all the
things that are dependent on IE6, but these are systems that were built
with a 5 year support contract and a big IT company name and not by
developers who appreciate the diversity of the web.

If you are looking for a framework that does a great job implementing
ARIA, check out Dojo.

From: Phil Teare
Date: Tue, Jul 15 2008 2:40AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

Use the 'basic HTML' version of Gmail would be my simple advice.

I'm sighted but have reading difficulties. Exchanged is not dyslexia
friendly. At all. The usability of a site/app is effectively the biggest
access issue for those like myself, where 'working memory' is an issue.
We're a big group - and in the uk at least, pretected by the DDA.

I believe that Gmail 'basic HTML' is pretty good through a screen reader
now, too. But I have a lot less experience from that angle.

Just my take.

Phil Teare,
CTO & Chief Architect,
http://www.talklets.com from Textic Ltd.
(44) [0] 208 4452871

2008/7/14 Christian Heilmann < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> ~G~ wrote:
> > This is the major hurdle that WAI-ARIA is and will hopefully solve.
> > Creating accessibility solutions for the RIA's which include javascript
> > frameworks/applications such as what Google is doing.
> >
> >
> Yes and no. the Danger there is that ARIA becomes a silver bullet. While
> it is true that ARIA is there to bridge the gap between HTML and RIA and
> get asssistive technology support as a freebie it is not an excuse to
> build applications that assume your browser can do things instead of
> testing for them.
>
> > I would say that that the js framework that supports ARIA more complete,
> > will be the one to get behind, support and work with in creating
> accessible
> > RIA solutions.
> >
> Yes, the bigger issue is however the browser support. As long as we are
> stuck with IE6, ARIA is not a solution. We need to clean out all the
> things that are dependent on IE6, but these are systems that were built
> with a 5 year support contract and a big IT company name and not by
> developers who appreciate the diversity of the web.
>
> If you are looking for a framework that does a great job implementing
> ARIA, check out Dojo.
>
>

From: Kara Zirkle
Date: Tue, Jul 15 2008 7:10AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Phil,

You make some good points, however using a basic HTML takes away functions
that the "normal" Gmail offers. However Microsoft Exchange and Exchange
Light (the accessible version) also has some of these same issues. However
I'm not looking at only the email portion. I'm also looking at the other
applications supported on the education version. Such as the live
collaboration piece, online storage, web page creation, etc. that varies
between Microsoft Exchange and Google. Have you had any experience with
these? I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has used these other features
that are used through the educational portion of these applications.

Thanks,

Kara Zirkle
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Assistive Technology Initiative
Thompson Hall RM 114 MS: 6A11
Fairfax Campus
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-9815
Fax: 703-993-4743
http://www.gmu.edu/accessibility/ati/home.html

From: Tech
Date: Tue, Jul 15 2008 9:30AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<title></title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<pre wrap="">Christian Heilmann wrote:
<<If you are looking for a framework that does a great job implementing
ARIA, check out Dojo.>>

Thanks for this, Christian. We gave up on Dojo over two years ago, finding it very dense, and documentation spotty. I just looked into their progress and they certainly have improved things. I worry about AOL/AIM, which is heavily dojo, and one of the buggier sites I know.
But one framework as dense as dojo is never going to be a general solutions library to solve this problem. Sigh...

</pre>
 
 
Christian Heilmann wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = " type="cite">
<pre wrap="">~G~ wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">This is the major hurdle that WAI-ARIA is and will hopefully solve.
Creating accessibility solutions for the RIA's which include javascript
frameworks/applications such as what Google is doing.

</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Yes and no. the Danger there is that ARIA becomes a silver bullet. While
it is true that ARIA is there to bridge the gap between HTML and RIA and
get asssistive technology support as a freebie it is not an excuse to
build applications that assume your browser can do things instead of
testing for them.

</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I would say that that the js framework that supports ARIA more complete,
will be the one to get behind, support and work with in creating accessible
RIA solutions.

</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Yes, the bigger issue is however the browser support. As long as we are
stuck with IE6, ARIA is not a solution. We need to clean out all the
things that are dependent on IE6, but these are systems that were built
with a 5 year support contract and a big IT company name and not by
developers who appreciate the diversity of the web.

If you are looking for a framework that does a great job implementing
ARIA, check out Dojo.

From: Phil Teare
Date: Tue, Jul 15 2008 9:50AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi

I use them, but not in your context.

fwiw I think the Google offerings are far superior for most, simply because
they are 'access anywhere'.

But sounds like I'm not quite who you're after.
:)
Phil

Phil Teare,
CTO & Chief Architect,
http://www.talklets.com from Textic Ltd.
(44) [0] 208 4452871

2008/7/15 Kara Zirkle < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> Hi Phil,
>
> You make some good points, however using a basic HTML takes away functions
> that the "normal" Gmail offers. However Microsoft Exchange and Exchange
> Light (the accessible version) also has some of these same issues. However
> I'm not looking at only the email portion. I'm also looking at the other
> applications supported on the education version. Such as the live
> collaboration piece, online storage, web page creation, etc. that varies
> between Microsoft Exchange and Google. Have you had any experience with
> these? I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has used these other
> features
> that are used through the educational portion of these applications.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kara Zirkle
> IT Accessibility Coordinator
> Assistive Technology Initiative
> Thompson Hall RM 114 MS: 6A11
> Fairfax Campus
> 4400 University Drive
> Fairfax, VA 22030
> Phone: 703-993-9815
> Fax: 703-993-4743
> http://www.gmu.edu/accessibility/ati/home.html
>
>

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Tue, Jul 15 2008 11:50AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility vs. Google and Microsoft Exchange
← Previous message | No next message

This is always the problem with the idea of "everyone should work
together to support the most accessible tool or product." As soon as
you tell people which one it is, they tell you they would never use that
one. Smile.

I doubt there will ever be one framework that everyone is going to use.
Instead its probably going to take people like us making the time to
work on the various frameworks to help them improve their accessibility
however we can.

I salute those of you on this list who are already doing that kind of
work. You are making it easier every day to help the developers I work
with create more accessible web applications. Hopefully, I will also
have an opportunity to contribute as well.

Thanks!

Tim