Re: [office-accessibility] OO XML a11y

[Peter Korn <Peter.Korn@Sun.COM>]

Hi Pete,

I've seen it, yes.  A number of the issues the ATRC cites are expansions 
of issues Microsoft's own OOXML accessibility review cited as well; I 
assume those facts are likely correct.  Beyond that, ATRC is one of the 
most knowledgeable independent accessibility research organizations on 
the planet, so I am inclined to believe that when they cite an issue it 
is real.  But, not being an OOXML expert (nor having read the ~6,000 
page OOXML specification), I can't say whether an issue found from 
reading one section of the spec. isn't adequately addressed by some 
other section (e.g. a section on pagination makes no mention of encoding 
page information that is important to DAISY conversion, but some other 
section several hundred pages away notes a way to encode page data).

In the overview to the white paper, the authors state: "It should be 
noted at the outset that this paper is not meant to serve as a 
substitute for a thorough accessibility review undertaken by a diverse 
team of disability experts, with inclusion and active participation of 
persons with disabilities. Rather, with this cursory glance we hope to 
demonstrate the urgent need for such a review."

I'm not aware of any thorough comparison of OOXML and ODF.  Going 
through the ~6,000 page spec., and comparing it to not only the ~600 
page ODF spec. but also the specs. for MathML and XForms and the other 
W3C standards that ODF references (but OOXML does not) is a *monumental* 
task.  And absent such a comparison, no accessibility comparison would 
be complete.  Certainly we could compare the known (or suspected) OOXML 
accessibility issues against the reviews we did (see IBM Tokyo's initial 
comparison of ODF v1.0 with MS-Office's .doc/.xls/.ppt on accessibility 
issues).  But I don't know that the result would be authoritative.

We should also think carefully about how much time we want to devote to 
such work.  Our charter is ODF and accessibility improvements to ODF; 
not to make statements about whether we are better/worse than OOXML on 
accessibility.  It is certainly useful to double-check our own work in 
light of issues ATRC found in another office document format - to verify 
that we didn't miss anything and address anything that we discover we 
did miss.  But I question whether we should do much more than that.


Regards,

Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

>
> Has anyone read this?
>
> http://www.atrc.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&sectionid=14&task=view&hidemainmenu=1&id=371 
>
>
> If so, are the facts correct?
>
> Are there other documents reviewing OO XML a11y?  Are there any 
> documents showing a direct comparison between OO XML and ODF with 
> respect to a11y?
>
> *Pete Brunet*
>                                                                          
> IBM Accessibility Architecture and Development
> 11501 Burnet Road, MS 9022E004, Austin, TX 78758
> Voice: (512) 838-4594, TL 678-4594, Fax: (512) 838-9666
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