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Re: PowerPoint Accessibility

for

From: Jonathan Metz
Date: Dec 12, 2013 8:37PM

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for your response. I¹m not sure you follow my question.

>"Remember 508 is not only for "people who use screen readers.²"

To clarify, I was referring to an older article that WebAim¹s name was on
regarding posting PPTs to the web. You can read that article here, though
I seem to remember reading on WebAim¹s site similar statements that the
PPT Viewer was not good for screen reader users:
http://wac.osu.edu/webaim/pptaxs.htm

Besides, I¹m not sure that matters, really. The fact that it *also*
includes people with screen readers probably intends for software to be
accessible to them too.

>"Recognizing that the viewer is not compliant and what else should be done
>is not appropriate for this list."

I¹m not exactly sure why it wouldn¹t be appropriate for this list. Many
other people have asked whether such and such a software is accessible and
what alternatives there are (see the accessible forms discussion from a
few days ago for an example).

>"Only the agency Section 508 Coordinator
>can/should make this [policy] decision."

I¹m trying to determine whether I should continue to advise someone to
continue to also create an accessible alternative every time they include
a PowerPoint. If there is an accessible plugin that agencies should or can
use, this would eliminate a lot of extra work.


Thanks again for responding.

Jon

>
>
>--
>Ryan E. Benson
>
>
>On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 6:41 PM, Jonathan Metz
>< <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I have seen a lot of US government agencies posting PowerPoints as stand
>> alone documents. I¹ve always been under the impression that PowerPoints
>> were by and large largely inaccessible unless a user has a copy of
>> PowerPoint available (and even then it¹s pretty inaccessible). An old
>> article on WebAim has said that the PowerPoint Viewer is useless to
>>screen
>> reader users. Since MS developed it in 2011, I¹m not sure that this has
>> changed at all.
>>
>> Since Section 508 requires the inclusion of a link to an accessible
>>plugin
>> to access the powerpoint, technically does including a PowerPoint
>>require
>> the use of an extra more accessible alternative to compensate for the
>>lack
>> of an accessible plugin? If not, what should agencies include as an
>> accessible plugin?
>>
>> Thanks for the feedback,
>>
>> Jon Metz
>> >> >> >>
>>>