MOSS Accessibility by TheKid
A great article has been posted by The Kid on how he creates accessible Publishing Websites in MOSS.
The first thing I would say about accessibility in MOSS is that it will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to make a site accessible (to AA or AAA) if you are using the webpart framework. This means that WebParts are out…even the extremely useful ContentByQuery webpart. Publishing controls and standard ASP.Net controls are your friends and should be used in place of webparts.
The problem with webparts is the WebPartZone, which generates a table to host the webparts, and the webparts themselves which generally create a TABLE in which to live. These TABLEs can be difficult to remove and I am yet to see a solution which doesn’t involve some slightly ‘hacked’ code.
What we are seeing is the emergence of two types of web sites, the ones that claim accessibility to AA or above which are Publishing Sites that used to be created in Content Management server and the Collaboration (more traditional SharePoint) sites that rely on the features like Web Parts and the rich User Experience that can achieve a level of compliance as documented in my review of the Microsoft published statement on accessibility – SharePoint accessibility – is MOSS accessible?
What about the mobile view?
MOSS 2007 provides us with the /m feature which can render a lot of the interactivity with the site in very simple, mobile phone compatible html format. Could this provide us with the AA or AAA accessibility we are seeking for the collaborative part of MOSS?
