[gui-talk] Sharepoint Accessibility

[Hoffman, Allen]

If you are only creating a file store with SharePoint, the accessibility is very good, and usability is not a serious concern.  However, while sharePoint has a low enterprise cost of ownership, once deployed what tends to happen is that other features which are not accessible, and can't easily be made so get picked up without any governance involved so nobody gets to say not to do so due to accessibility problems.  But using sharePoint as a file store is fairly straightforward, but you need SharePoint administrators and support, where you would not need nearly as much for a simple share drive. SharePoint does provide versioning and such as well, check-in/check-out features which are helpful for some tasks.
  


Allen Hoffman
Deputy Executive Director
The Office of Accessible Systems & Technology
Department of Homeland Security
202-447-0503 (voice)
allen.hoffman at hq.dhs.gov

DHS Accessibility Helpdesk
202-447-0440 (voice)
202-447-0582 (fax)
202-447-5857 (TTY)
accessibility at dhs.gov
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David Andrews via gui-talk
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 1:18 AM
To: Steve Jacobson; Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Sharepoint Accessibility

I would agree with Steve.  You would be using a sledge hammer and 
spikes to do a job that just needs a few thumb tacks.

In general, Sharepoint is accessible, but its usability for blind 
users can be so bad that it is in effect inaccessible becqause it is 
so unfamiliar and difficult to use.

Dave

At 09:18 PM 1/24/2015, you wrote:
>Peter,
>
>While SharePoint can be accessible, you would need to learn 
>something about it to make it as accessible as possible.  It is 
>generally a web interface but it is
>almost more of a platform than just an interface.  You might find it 
>is more work than it is worth for what you want to do.  It seems 
>like a bit of a sledge-
>hammer to do what you need, and I would think it would be 
>expensive.  I would wonder exactly what it does that you couldn't do 
>yourself with other means,
>unless it is an interface already being used for cloud storage.
>
>You will hear that SharePoint is not
>accessible sometimes.  That is not a contradiction of what I've said 
>here.  Some
>SharePoint sites can be constructed in a way that makes them very, 
>very difficult to use.  If you would be using a SharePoint site that 
>someone else built,
>you should make sure to try it first.  I would add, though, that 
>even if you try it and find it hard to use, you may find you can get 
>used to it enough to make it
>worth it if the site does what you want.  My understanding is that 
>if you are designing the SharePoint site, you can probably make it 
>pretty useable.  I use
>some SharePoint sites but have not built any.  still, it seems like 
>a complex way to approach this.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Steve Jacobson
>
>On Sat, 24 Jan 2015 19:52:37 -0600, Peter Donahue via gui-talk wrote:
>
>
> >Good evening everyone,
>
> >    We're seeking an alternative to our current offsite file storage
> >solution. One idea given to me today was to build one from scratch using
> >Microsoft's Sharepoint. We use JAWS 14 so would like to know if this screen
> >reader will work with Sharepoint. Your feedback will be very much
> >appreciated.
>
> >Peter Donahue

         David Andrews and long white cane Harry.
E-Mail:  dandrews at visi.com or david.andrews at nfbnet.org


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