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Re: accessibility of Dot Net Nuke and SharePoint

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From: Geoff Munn
Date: Jun 3, 2007 1:10AM

On 3/06/2007, at 5:47 AM, Joshue O Connor wrote:

> John E. Brandt wrote:
>> DNN is open-source, but it appeared
>> that the people in that community were not as aware or interested in
>> accessibility issues - my impression.
>
> Thats my impression also from the digging that I have done for a
> client
> of ours. I haven't looked too deeply but I think that everything gets
> outputted into tables when you use Sharepoint. I do tend to agree with
> Jukka that the use of tables and potential accessibility problems is a
> bit of a myth in accessibility circles, however having said that,
> it is
> not ideal.
>
> If your web interfaces are marked up correctly etc and you stick to
> good
> development/design practices, you should be Ok - if you _must_ use it
> but there are certainly much better systems out there such as
> Drupal and
> Joomla.
>
> HTH
>
> Josh


Sharepoint is great for an Intranet, if you're looking to use this as
a public-facing website then you may find it difficult to
customise... it's hard to make Sharepoint look like anything other
than Sharepoint... but it can be done.

DNN is easy to set up, but from there are many browser compatibility
issues to consider (ie, try it on anything other than IE).
Sharepoint outputs everything in tables, but you can use adapters to
convert it all to a CSS layout if you'd prefer.
I am aware of one project (who shall remain nameless) who are using
Sharepoint for a public website and they are rewriting every control
for accessibility purposes. I was impressed because that's a pretty
big job.
If you're tied to the Microsoft platform then your options are
limited and expensive, otherwise you might want to consider Drupal et
al.

I'm keen to hear other people's take on Sharepoint in particular.

Geoff