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Re: SharePoint frustrations

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From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Nov 23, 2015 9:37AM

I think that SharePoint is the classic example of why you don't do accessibility as a separate process at the end of application development.

SharePoint functional development appears to remain completely divorced from the accessibility add-on that requires turning on "more accessible mode." If Microsoft ever gets serious about the accessibility of their web apps they will probably need to engineer the front end interface from the ground up using a consolidated development team where all of the designers and developers are trained in accessibility. As it is now, it appears that they develop/evolve the front-end and then throw it over the wall to a few developers who labor in an accessibility gulag and must attempt to add the accessibility to the existing application. They are apparently forbidden to alter any of the underlying code that is the source of most of the problems.

An entire cottage industry has evolved to bolt accessibility on to SharePoint. I am sure that there are sound business strategy decisions made by Microsoft to perpetuate this model, and that their shareholders are happy. With their dominance in the enterprise market they really don't have much motivation to change. </rant>

Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)