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Re: Google Apps for Education - improvements in accessibility reported

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From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Sep 19, 2011 11:39AM

Not to be the black cloud about good news, but it is worth noting that their improvements were screen-reader/blind specific - perhaps because of the complaint/law suit - and not about overall accessibility. it does make me wonder if they were responding to the overall accessibility issues in their products (after they're released) or were reacting to the lawsuit in deciding what improvements to make.

* We've recently made some accessibility enhancements to Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites. Improvements have been made in keyboard shortcuts and support for screen readers<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>; among other items.
* http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2011/09/accessibility-improvements-to-google.html

the focus of Google's contributions and responses tend to be very vision/screen-reader centric: http://groups.google.com/group/accessible. For instance, without their concerted testing, it's impossible to say whether their "keyboard shortcuts and support for screen readers<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>;" will have any effect on speech recognition software applications.


Gary M.