Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7.0 Released without Accessibility
— ♣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.