It was the Office Assistant, an animated paperclip that could be helpful in answering questions for sighted users, but can also be a real screen reader stopper. One involved text disappearing, applications being sluggish, and strange sounds coming from the computer. Once MSAA brought speech to Office 97, users discovered other problems. But using the current version of MSAA in Office makes you feel as if there is another force present, in addition to you, your screen reader, and the application you are using. Of course, that situation is better than not knowing the current state of the control or even that there was a control there at all. That kind of problem is the result of the screen reader waiting for MSAA to convey that information from Office's nonstandard controls. It probably sometimes seemed as if you could have gone to the water cooler and back before your screen reader announced whether a checkbox was checked or unchecked. So a user whose screen reader is using MSAA in Office should get the information at least as fast as they do in applications that don't have something assisting the screen reader, right? Those of you who use screen readers that use MSAA extensively know that is not the case. Also, this work is serious programming that must be done by someone thoroughly familiar with that screen reader's internal workings, whereas an advanced user can develop a configuration file for another program that uses standard controls. But, since those programs use nonstandard controls, almost none of the work done by screen reader manufacturers can be used in non-Office applications. Office applications are among the most popular on the market and, naturally, the number one priority is to get your product to work best with the most popular programs. No matter which method they choose, screen reader manufacturers must spend a huge amount of time making their products work with Office. Querying the DOM requires more computing power than does MSAA, as well. You can think of it as almost having to write a separate screen reader for each application. Using the DOM involves a lot of time and programming. Jaws uses the DOM to get more complete information than MSAA can supply in many cases-to read the cell address, value, and format in Excel, for instance. The DOM is typically used to allow one application to control another-to allow Word to print labels from names and addresses stored in Access, for example. Henter-Joyce chose to use Microsoft's Document Object Model (DOM).
#Microsoft office 2000 standard windows#
JAWS for Windows from Henter-Joyce uses MSAA only in Office menus and takes a different approach elsewhere. (For more about MSAA, see "Taking the Mystery Out of Microsoft Active Accessibility" in this issue.) A Different Approach Screen readers that use MSAA as their major way of obtaining information from Office applications include: Window-Eyes from GW Micro, Window Bridge from Syntha-Voice, and WinVision from Arctic Technologies. The developers of Office 2000 promised to expand the use of MSAA into Access 2000 and into many of Office's nooks and crannies where screen reader users previously could not go without tricks that only the experts among us know. However, since Microsoft had not completely implemented MSAA in Office 97, many controls, including most of those used in Access 97, still did not work with speech. Screen reader manufacturers that incorporated MSAA were able to begin to function in Office 97 menus and some dialog boxes. For a user to benefit from MSAA, it is necessary for it to be incorporated into both the application and the screen reader. Microsoft enhanced its accessibility team and developed Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), programming enhancements designed to improve access to applications. The unanimous outcry from blind users, organizations of and for the blind, and screen reader manufacturers culminated in threats from the state of Massachusetts to not buy Microsoft Office if the program did not improve dramatically. However, underlined text was invisible to screen readers, and menus and dialog boxes were silent. It was possible to read text in Microsoft Word 97. Surely you remember the fun you had with Office 97. Screen readers have improved since then, and Microsoft has announced accessibility enhancements designed to make Office 2000 easier to use for people who are blind or visually impaired. Blind users suffered substantial losses in productivity when Office 97 was launched amid much fanfare. If you use a computer, chances are pretty good that you use one or more of the applications that are included in Microsoft's Office suite.