We have tried to address as many potential accessibility issues as possible during the development of MSG. Here is a selection of known issues and tips for users:
Keyboard only users
You should be able to use the tab keys to navigate through all the controls and links and the return/enter key to select the required options. Also, when using the chat window, you may wish to keep the text entry field collapsed (in it’s single line state), as if you use the multi line chat You'll find you have to tab to the send button each time rather than just pressing return. The reason for this is that the multi-line chat box allows users to create a new line in the message, so we cannot use the return key to also send the message.
Voice recognition software and blind users
The latest contributions to the chat are aded to the end of the conversation history field in the chat window. Your screen reader may not pick up these additions, so you should monitor this area of the screen to keep up with the conversation.
Colour-blind users
You may have difficulty distinguishing between the ‘online’ and ‘offline’ status icons, however if you hover your mouse over one of the icons the tooltip will tell you the actual status of the icon.
If you have a suggestion for something we could do better in terms of accessibility or functionality isn't working the way it should then please contact us at kmi-msg@open.ac.uk.
One reply on “Accessibility”
[…] Finally, I’ve also made some changes to the MSG client to improve accessibility, for example checking all the alt/title tags and tab/keyboard access to all the functions. It’s not yet on the live server (or on the LabSpace server) but once We've had the changes checked over we should be able to release these - also new accessibility page on MSG site. […]