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Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0 Released without Accessibility

29 April, 2008 @ 3:14 pm by Lioncourt

Today, Microsoft released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0, the latest version of their popular instant messaging client for the Live Messenger and Office Communications services. Unfortunately, Microsoft apparently paid little or no attention to accessibility.

Like most Mac software, Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 could have been made accessible. In fact, it nearly is. Most controls in the program are properly tagged, and what minor access issues exist in the bulk of the user interface are cosmetic to the VoiceOver user.

The problem arises if you try to use the application for…well…instant messaging. From our initial tests, it appears that you cannot access the text areas of a conversation window without calling up a different window, although the other controls in the conversation window are available.

To read a conversation, for example, you can press Command-Comma to open the Preferences dialog. Focus, instead of moving to the Preferences Dialog, moves to the text of the current conversation window. You can then interact with the HTML content and read messages that have come in so far, or move focus to the second HTML content area to send a message. This might be an annoying but usable workaround if the HTML content area where messages come in displayed new messages as they come in. It doesn’t. To view new messages you have to close the Preference dialog, turn VoiceOver off and on again, then repeat the process.

This clearly appears to be nothing more than complacency on Microsoft’s part. Clearly this instant messaging client has everything in place to be accessible. Microsoft just didn’t care enough to check and fix the bugs.

If you’d like to see better access to Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0, we encourage you to contact Microsoft through their Accessibility Site.

Posted in Apple Inc., Commentary, Third-Party Products | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0 Released without Accessibility”

  1. BlindGeek articulated:

    And does this honestly surprise you? I mean, Apple’s Microsoft’s biggest competitor. I’m frankly more surprised that they have a Mac MSN client at all. Besides, think what great fodder it will be once NFB and ACB and other like-minded organizations (Boy, what times we live in when NFB and ACB can be said to be like-minded about anything!) once they’re able to say “Apparently, Voiceover couldn’t even handle the Microsoft Messenger update, which naturally Window-Eyes and Jaws handle fine with its counterpart.”

    Of course, if they’re having accessibility issues of their own, this might be a moot point.

    April 29th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
  2. Jake replied:

    This is far from surprising. Given MS’s past efforts, or lack there of, for accessibility on both their own OS and Mac I would be very surprised to see any accessible software come out from MS.
    Remember, MS Office is no more accessible out of the box on Windows then it is on the Mac, what makes it work are the endless tweaks, hooks, and hidden APIs that the Windows screen readers have come to use. The same is true for messenger, for explorer, and indeed for most of Windows itself. Microsoft has done very little when it comes to accessibility itself (Narrator, anyone?), as they know the screen reader developers will do their work for them.
    This matters little to the average user, however, and given the political motivations behind the blindness organizations, I agree that this will probably look bad for Apple, though through no fault of their own. The fact that the Windows screen readers use hacks doesn’t matter to most people, what matters is that it works, though in my opinion in a very unstable and reactionary fashion. The fact that Apple has an integrated accessibility infrastructure that Microsoft chose not to employ will not matter. 95% of people believe everything they’re told, be they blind or otherwise, and what they’ll be told is that Voiceover doesn’t work, and they’ll believe it.
    About Messenger itself I honestly don’t care much, I didn’t even use it under Windows. I prefer the multi-protocol IM clients, like Trillian on Windows or Adium on OS X. Regardless, this issue is bigger than Messenger, and I’d urge anyone and everyone to write to MS and express your desire for accessibility, though I honestly hold little hope for it from them anymore.

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:39 am

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