Hi all:

I have recently subscribed to an MS Office users list on which most of the
other subscribers are sighted.  However, there is one person on that list,
very dynamic, who is very interested in MS accessibility issues.

This person is attending a big MS conference in February and has asked me to
canvas people on issues she might bring up to the MS Accessibility team.

Now, it is my understanding that when building MS programs, MS leaves
"hooks" for screen reader manufacturers to "hang" accessibility on.  If I am
wrong on this assumption please correct me.

Now, if this is the case it seems logical that providing hooks are being
made available in this way the onus is on screen reader manufacturers to
provide good accessibility solutions, right?

Therefore, I am requesting input on what, in your opinion, MS could do
better in this area.

One suggestion I have is that Safe Mode be somehow made accessible - it is
my understanding that currently this is not so as Safe mode is reached
before kicking into windows, and therefore as screen readers load up after
windows has loaded, currently there is no screen reader available when safe
mode is entered.

If anyone has suggestions I would be happy to pass them on, but if you could
respond to me about this within the next couple of weeks that would be
helpful.

I look forward to some interesting discussion on this issue.

Best regards:

DOREEN YALE.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html