Hello Catherine,

I am also looking for an accessible project management software for work. I can share with you that I was recently on a conference call with a couple staffers from Microsoft and asked that very question about MS Project. They said that MS Project is not very accessible at this time, however that may change with the next version of MS Project. They looked at retrofitting the app with accessibility hooks and handles, however they found that there are to many gaps to fill, my words not theirs, to do a retrobuild. Thus, the MS Project team is working on the newer version from the ground up and including accessibility as a requirement. Again, I am stating in my own words what I took away from their answer to me on this topic. The Microsoft team did mention that their VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates) are upto date and are a pretty accurate reflection of the level of accessibility you will find in their products. 



You have heard correctly that Atlassian programs like Jira and Confluence are fairly accessible, though you are also correct that they are not exactly project management apps. There are some PM products that are working on rolling out accessible versions of their products late this Spring or early Summer. I will share any information that I learn on this topic with this list. 

Most PM tools have many parts to them that as a blind person are not important to me for them to be accessible. These include: gant charts, calendar views for numerous PM staff (for a supervisor), resource management gants, ability to view all projects (project staff, all tasks in all those projects, etc). The tools I am wanting to use are spreadsheet view of task in a single project; staff assignments in a particular project with time-lines, an enter communication tool that allows me and all others on a particular project to share and assign tasks and updates. A dashboard view would be a nice to have, but not crucial. Also a spreadsheet view of all my projects that I am the lead or participating in would be very useful. This overview would be very similar to the individual project task spreadsheet, but would be a larger view across multiple projects. 



Stay tuned!



Terri Hedgpeth, Ed.D.



-----Original Message-----

From: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Catherine Getchell

Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2017 6:17 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: [VICUG-L] Microsoft Project and Other Project Management Software Programs



Hi listers,



Does anyone have any experience using MS Project with JAWS or any other screen reader?  I'm going to be taking a project management course in the fall, and the syllabus says they use Microsoft Project for their assignments.  I can't dig up too much info on this but did read a post on another forum that indicated that JAWS no longer supports MS Project.  I also read that some of the Atlassian programs like Jira and Confluence are more accessible, but I'm not sure if they do the same things Project does.  Thanks for any info!

Catherine





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