[NFBCS] Outlook.office.com

Sat Sep 3 19:14:04 UTC 2022

Hi all, my major complaint is about unnecessary use of peculiar/custom widgets when highly usable ones could be used instead. I just filled out a survey that highlighted (I think) answers when Radio Buttons would work just fine. I spend too much of my time pointing out what a good designer should have known.
If this comment has already been made I apologize. I admit I have largely just  skimmed things in this thread.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson via NFBCS
Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2022 8:22 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Steve Jacobson <steve.jacobson at outlook.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Outlook.office.com

Curtis and everybody,

Here is my frustration with some of Microsoft's online applications.  I find that some of them seem to be working better as time has passed.  Yesterday, I explored a spreadsheet at work on line from a SharePoint site.  It was sluggish in my opinion but I could explore using the arrow keys.  I am not an expert in online Excel at all, and there could be other limitations of which I am not aware, but I don't think this used to work for me.  I have to use SharePoint regularly as well, and it is frustrating, but for me it just is often not intuitive.  How do I make it intuitive?  I have used Microsoft's OneDrive for some time now and I also use DropBox,  I find both to be more intuitive than using Google Drive, but what makes them intuitive?  I am not really sure.

My frustration is that many of the difficulties I have had with Microsoft online applications and with SharePoint are more useability than accessibility.  I have a hard time pointing at something that is clearly not accessible.  For me, some of the same issues, though exhibited differently, exist with Google's interface.  The standard view in Gmail, for example, seems to be to be accessible, but there is a learning curve, at least for me.  When faced with spending the time to learn the various keys and what to turn on in the standard view or sticking with an email cliend or the HTML view, I tend to retreat to my comfort zone rather than learning what I need to learn.  I am not particularly proud of that fact.

My experience with Microsoft has been that they are pretty committed to accessibility, even with their online applications.  However, if I complain, the first question is what is it that I specifically have a problem with.  When I pick one, there is usually some method of dealing with it that I didn't know about.  If we really feel that the Office online products need to be improved in terms of accessibility, some of us are going to need to spend a good deal of time understanding these applications so we can deal with specifics and then explain why a proposed solution isn't working for us.  Many of us did just this with Google, and while Google made many improvements, we have also had to learn Google's interface.  It was only a few years ago when we were unwilling to do that.  

Part, but not all, of our problem is that we often expect these applications to work like a web page because they are web based.  They just don't, and that cat is already out of the bag as they say.  I just took a survey yesterday that I initially thought was not accessible.  There was a slider that I had to set to register the level of my response.  Eventually, I found that if I turned the JAWS virtual cursor off with JAWSKEY and Z, and if I used the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys, I could set the slider very easily.  I would add that the UP and DOWN ARROW keys didn't do anything, and of course, that's what I tried first.  I finished this short survey but it took me longer to figure out how to move the sliders and it took to do the survey and it simply was not really worth my time, except that the learning experience is an investment in my future.  The survey had nothing to do with Microsoft, I should add.

If we think Microsoft online apps are not working as well as they should for us, we need to find people who are willing to really take the time to help figure out what the problem is and what the solutions are.  Just as with Google, it seems like some of this could be accomplished using internal resources.  However, people who are close to these products already have learned what they need to know to use certain applications, so they don't experience the learning curve that we do.  I noticed a few years ago when many of us were struggling with Google products, that people close to Google were not experiencing the same difficulties because they already had the base knowledge than many of us did not have.  To me, the answers to all of this are not all that obvious.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Curtis Chong via NFBCS
Sent: Friday, September 2, 2022 11:23 AM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Curtis Chong <chong.curtis at gmail.com>; 'Tracy Carcione' <carcione at access.net>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Outlook.office.com

Hello Tracy:

I would agree that this is a longstanding issue that Microsoft has never fixed but should. There was a time in my working life when I had to use the Outlook web interface to change my password every three months. This site was not accessible until I configured my profile to use the so-called "light" version. Shame on Microsoft.

Best regards,

Curtis Chong

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione via NFBCS
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2022 6:15 AM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Tracy Carcione <carcione at access.net>
Subject: [NFBCS] Outlook.office.com

In the spirit of sharing info: 

I recently started working for a client who uses outlook.office.com for email.  It was very difficult to use with Jaws.  I could read messages, but replying was impossible.  Either I couldn't do it at all, or I couldn't read any of what I said.  

I called Microsoft Disability, and they said it just doesn't work well with screen readers.  The tech said I could try different browsers, but wasn't too hopeful any would really work. 

Edge worked the best, but still not well enough to do the job.  

The tech told me what I needed to find out to set up an account in Outlook the app, and, once I had the needed info, I was able to create an Outlook account and get my email, so long as I use that machine.  

It doesn't seem right that Microsoft knows its online Outlook doesn't work with screen readers, but hey-ho, too bad.  Is this a commitment to accessibility?

Tracy

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