Microsoft Web Accessibility Handbook

AKS Approach

There are many, many SharePoint-based Web sites and intranets in the world. AKS allows organizations to continue to use their existing SharePoint infrastructure to build accessible sites, and to incrementally improve their existing sites. AKS significantly reduces the amount of work needed to make these sites conform to WCAG 1.0. This puts a WCAG 1.0 compliant site within reach of many organizations that may not have been able to achieve it in the past, and as such, improves the overall accessibility of the Web.

In developing AKS, Microsoft and HiSoftware wanted to ensure that adopting it would be as painless as possible for organizations using SharePoint. To achieve that it had to be non-invasive, educational, and extensible.

Non-invasive – AKS does not modify any core components of SharePoint, cannot break existing installations, and won’t be broken by service releases. Developers can use as much or as little of AKS as they choose, and can apply it incrementally.

Educational – By deploying open tools to assist in the deployment of more usable sites the kit is going beyond just telling the designer to do something. AKS provides tools are being provided to help designers achieve and understand Web accessibility.

Extensible – By openly documenting and issuing guidance around Web parts, the AKS solution provides a simple framework example for all developers to use, allowing for the broader impact of the AKS across all developers who build SharePoint sites and add-ons for reuse.

This non-invasive, extensible, educational approach has made the barrier to entry for WCAG 1.0 conformant Web sites much lower.

AKS allows an organization to meet organizational goals and objectives with regard to compliance with standards and guidelines at a low cost, not only because it is a free add-on, but because it is also designed for a low total cost of ownership. It is non-invasive and won’t break existing installations. It does not require training for end user. It allows WCAG 1.0 AA conformance on a site built with SharePoint 2007, and introduced accessible business productivity solutions.

End users reading sites benefit from AKS because it lowers the cost of accessibility improvements on the most common SharePoint sites, which means that more of these sites will be made accessible.

End Users as Authors

AKS and for that matter, SharePoint itself empowers end users to become site authors. The very purpose of SharePoint is to separate design from content. SharePoint uses templates and master pages with CSS to design the look and feel of a site, and then Web parts to feed rich content through those templates. End users choose from templates and add content through them. In this way users are empowered to build their own content through the creation of MySites, TeamSites and through direct publication of content on the Web which can be managed through a SharePoint work flow. This empowering process is extended with accessibility through the implementation of AKS. AKS applied on the server allows users to create content that is more accessible without specific design knowledge.

Since AKS is run on the server, end users do not need to install or configure anything. They don’t need to understand the details of Web Accessibility or even Web site development. AKS provides, out of the box, WCAG 1.0 conformant versions of the most common SharePoint scenarios, including site templates and the most popular Web parts.

AKS empowers users to create more accessible output through SharePoint by allowing them to 1) start their site with an accessible template; 2) create accessible rich user experiences with accessible versions of the most common Web parts used in SharePoint 3) accomplish this without any additional burden on the content creator or end user, as AKS is installed entirely on the server side of SharePoint by an administrator. Business users and content creators are then more able to achieve accessible Web site design because they are provided with the tools to help them do the “right thing” without having to fully understand the details of doing so.

The following pieces of the solution empower end users engaged in authoring functions to create WCAG 1.0 AA conformant sites, without having to fully understand the intricacies of that standard or Web development.

The AKS Solution-Enabling Accessibility

The AKS solution represents a set of files, programs, and utilities that facilitate the enhanced accessible and usable output of Microsoft Office Server SharePoint (MOSS) 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). While the kit is not an end-all to accessibility it represents both a step forward in technology and education. Throughout this project, HiSoftware’s development team worked in collaboration with the Microsoft SharePoint Server development team to ensure that AKS was designed and developed in a way that would have little to no impact on the core system architecture of SharePoint. In this way, there would be little impact to AKS users when Microsoft released a Service Pack or update for SharePoint.

The AKS development effort also used an iterative approach with phased releases of the kit to address top accessibility priorities with gains that could be readily achieved. This was undertaken through the use of updates to Master Pages, Publishing Templates, CSS and Control Adapters that intercept the output of SharePoint Web parts before that output is rendered in a Web browser.

From a technology perspective it provides new Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Master Pages, multiple control adapters and Reusable Content Examples as needed to be successful. One approach addressing accessibility challenges within SharePoint would have been to modify the Web parts within SharePoint itself. But HiSoftware in collaboration with the SharePoint development team determined that this approach carried too great a risk of creating other issues that could be detrimental within the SharePoint environment.

The AKS Size Utility

The AKS Size Utility is a C# Application developed to help facilitate the change of units from absolute to relative. While there are many places on the internet where one can find these calculations, the AKS Size Utility provides a practical and automated solution. The utility does this by opening and documenting conversion figures that will be adjustable by individual designers and developers alike.

The AKS Style Sheets

The AKS Style sheets represent a group of style sheets that have been reviewed and tested to allow for the quick implementation of relative sizing for sites that use the styles shipped with SharePoint 2007 and for sites that will be implemented anew with SharePoint styles.

The AKS Master Pages

A master page in SharePoint is used to create a standard “look and feel” for a Web site. The master page controls the primary colors, navigation and “style” of the site. The master pages apply to the entire section of a site and create a consistent experience across the site. These pages can be created through the out of the box templates in SharePoint and can also be created by developers from scratch. The AKS master pages are a group of master pages that will implement the new styles and additional template related corrections that provide better usability overall. These pages will allow for a one click implementation of the AKS Style sheets and other accessibility and usability enhancements as required or wanted by the site designers. The image below is a typical SharePoint Web page. One of the accessibility challenges in SharePoint is its use of Absolute font sizes versus relative font size. Thus when an end user changes the font size in their browser, nothing happens.

AKS Reusable Content

Reusable content can provide SharePoint users with simple code examples that can be cut and pasted into their implementations, The AKS examples will provide a great way to both educate and deliver more usable and in some cases more accessible content. In addition re-usable content provides the ability for more uniform and accessible standardized content to the internet or intranet sites to which you are publishing.