HiSoftware has joined efforts with Microsoft to create the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint or AKS which provides reusable tools and components as well as documentation and tutorials to ensure that MOSS provides a basic solution for accessibility. The intellectual property, jointly owned by HiSoftware and Microsoft, is available as shared source code to the community through Codeplex.

The AKS will deliver a kit that can significantly reduce the time, knowledge, and effort required to implement a SharePoint-based Web site that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints, which are collectively known as WCAG 1.0 AA. The AKS can also be used to address the exceptions that have been identified in the U.S. government’s Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT documents for
MOSS 2007.

The kit will provide templates, master pages, controls and Web parts along with technical documentation to advance the accessibility of MOSS based web sites and applications for people with disabilities, especially those who are vision impaired. All of the source code will be provided via the Microsoft Permissive License this year for customers and other Microsoft partners to download, reuse, and extend.

The AKS is being developed as a set of building blocks rather than an end-to-end solution. We expect many SharePoint partners to take various pieces of the kit and integrate them into their respective product or service offerings while some customers will integrate particular components of the kit into their SharePoint deployment processes.

Microsoft partnered with leading accessibility technology vendor HiSoftware to build the AKS. The decision was made primarily based on HiSoftware’s in-depth expertise and broad industry experience in providing tools and services for improving software accessibility to the point of compliance with key industry and government standards and beyond.  HiSoftware delivers a suite of compliance products that provide an end-to-end solution in helping organizations meet their accessibility demands. 

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HiSoftware Solutions for MOSS

HiSoftware solutions are designed to help you achieve accessibility across you enterprise...

The AKS solution will help get you started on the road to Web accessibility with an accessible platform/framework from which to launch your portal or intranet site. By adding HiSoftware’s end-to-end accessibility solutions you can extend the basic accessibility provided by the AKS with comprehensive solutions designed to help you maintain, monitor, test and repair your Web site to make sure you are always in compliance. Plus HiSoftware solutions are scalable. Every organization is different and has individual needs, so we offer a variety of solutions to fit your requirements from developer’s desktop products to enterprise governance solutions. These solutions provide an easy-to-use, cost effective mechanism for automated, scheduled, and on-demand monitoring of multiple Web sites, for site quality, compliance and change management. This dramatically reduces time, cost, and complexity associated with building, deploying, and maintaining a properly functioning Web site that maintains the highest level of corporate compliance. A scalable architecture provides a faster deployment time and a lower cost of ownership for the solution set.

Learn more about HiSoftware's Solutions for MOSS

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