[access-uk] Received from a friend early this year.
- From: Colin Howard <colin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:08:51 +0000
Greetings,
Thought this may be of interest / use, it seems currently to be applicable
in the States but maybe others can provide more up-to-date information.
December 2013 Issue Volume 14 Number 12
Looking at the New Microsoft Accessibility Answer Desk
Bill Holton
If you had technical issues with Windows or MS Office you didn't call
Microsoft, you reached out to Dell, HP, or one of the many other original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who built and sold you the computer. PCs
have been rapidly becoming more similar to each other and with company
profits shrinking almost daily, these days OEM technical support simply
isn't what it used to be.
With the release of Windows 8, Microsoft decided it was in their best
interest to provide more customer support and they started with their new
Answer Desk, through which consumers can get full in-warrantee service for
Microsoft products and a complimentary 15-minute consultation for
out-of-warrantee issues.
As part of this support restructuring, Microsoft also took a fresh look at
their accessibility initiatives. "In Windows 8 we added a lot of new
functionality to Narrator and the other services in the Ease of Access
Center," says Denise Rundle, General Manager, Microsoft Advertising and
Consumer Services. "Unfortunately, our research showed many
individuals who could benefit from these improvements weren't aware they
existed, or [of] how to use them to their fullest potential."
Microsoft has accepted the lion's share of the responsibility for this
lack of awareness. "Our support specialists weren't always as
knowledgeable as they needed to be when it came to the special needs of
people with disabilities and the accessibility resources we have to
offer," Rundle says. "About two years ago we began looking for some
outside training. We couldn't find anything appropriate for our
call centers, so we developed it in house."
Today, all Microsoft support specialists are given training in disability
awareness, etiquette and sensitivity. "When someone self-identifies as
having disabilities, we want our support specialists to be able to ask the
right questions and not trip up over language and wind up saying something
stupid or offensive," Rundle told me and I had to smile because just
hours before I had experienced this very problem when I called a support
line for a different company.
"You need to press the green button near the top," the support technician
instructed me and when I explained I was blind and using a screen
reader he replied, "OK, I understand. So then let's start out by going to
the top and pressing the green button." In his defense, this second time
he did speak extra slowly and clearly.
According to Rundle, this in-house training was phase one of a two-part
accessibility initiative. "We needed to not only recognize the technology
requirements of people with disabilities, our support workers also needed
to be able to help people learn how to use Microsoft's accessibility
features and help long-time users solve issues causing them problems."
In August of 2012 the accessibility team commenced a pilot project with
the goal of offering personalized, one-on-one assistance to individuals
with disabilities using Microsoft's accessibility features. "The response
exceeded our expectations," says Rundle. In February of 2013 the
Accessibility Answer Desk was made available to the public throughout
North America.
My Triple Test Run
According to Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Senior Director, Accessibility Customer
Experiences, "We took the cream of the crop of our Windows and Office
support technicians and gave them several months of accessibility
training." I decided to see for myself, so over a two-week period I called
the Accessibility Answer Desk three times with three different issues that
affected my ability to use my PCs. Here's what happened.
Sounding Off
One of my computers is an old notebook I have connected to an external
keyboard and USB sound card. Window-Eyes worked fine on this setup, but
for some reason none of my Windows system sounds were playing. I tried
setting the system sounds to use the external USB card and the notebook's
internal speaker by turn: no luck.
After explaining the problem to the accessibility support worker he asked
me a few questions that did not begin with "Have you tried turning the
computer off and back on again?" He asked me to try playing some streaming
video, and when there was no audio for this, either, he set to work.
After leading me through the steps to initiate a support.me remote session
the technician took control of my PC. The very first thing he did was
create a Windows Restore point. I was impressed and more than a little
grateful. The last time I had had trouble with a sound card was when I
updated a Dell computer from Windows Vista to Windows 7 and the sound card
refused to work. After paying through the nose for out-of-warrantee
support and three hours on the phone with a technician, he had fouled up
my system so hopelessly, I finally pulled the plug on the session,
demanded my money back, and used it to buy a USB sound card, which worked
perfectly.
Window-Eyes and Vocalizer Karen Standard kept me apprised as the
technician poked around various system settings, winding up in the Control
Panel. After a few more seconds the streaming video began playing audio
through my notebook's speakers, and when I asked the technician if he
could move the audio to the sound card, which has higher-fidelity stereo
speakers, he obliged quickly.
Throughout the ten-minute session the technician neither talked down to me
nor tried to go over my head with a lot of high-tech jargon. When I asked
what the problem had been, he took me step by step through what he had
done. I had Window-Eyes set to use the USB sound card, and I had also set
the system sounds to use that device. But there were three devices in my
sound card list, the notebook's speakers, the USB sound card, and the
notebook's headset jack. Even though I had set Windows to play system
sounds through the USB sound card, the headphone jack was the default
device. Windows wants very badly to play system sounds through the default
device, and once the technician had changed that one setting all was well
again.
We'll score that one a big "oops" for me and a definite "way to go" for
Microsoft.
No Swiping
Narrator for Windows 8 includes an extensive set of touch screen command
gestures. For example, a one-finger swipe left or right moves one screen
element to the left or right in that direction. To select the screen
element, character, word, link, etc., you swipe either up or down with one
finger. I was practicing these gestures when at one point the swipe up and
down gestures stopped working and began giving me strange results. Time to
call Microsoft.
Again the support technician was welcoming and friendly, but when I
explained my problem she stated unequivocally, "Narrator doesn't have any
touch commands." I suggested that it actually did, and when the technician
did not offer to check I decided it was time to end this call and try
again.
A different technician solved my problem almost instantly. Narrator has
two navigation modes, normal and advanced, and I had inadvertently toggled
this setting to advanced by pressing Caps lock + A. When I toggled back to
normal mode the up and down swipe gestures functioned again as advertised.
The rep also told me that in Windows 8.1, which I have subsequently
installed, this function has been moved so I am not likely to make this
mistake again. We'll score this one "fat fingers" on my part, and "mixed
results" for Microsoft.
An Outlook Issue
Finally, I decided to consult the Accessibility Answer Desk on a
long-standing problem I have had with Outlook 2010. Occasionally, after
deleting an e-mail, or pressing Enter to open one, my speech would lock up
for up to a minute. Other times Outlook would close and then restart all
on its own. I used to attribute most of these problems to the fact that,
in my previous job, I had to keep thousands of e-mails with very large
attachments readily available in various accounts, resulting in Outlook
.PST data files that often exceeded 12 gigabytes. I no longer need to keep
these e-mails on hand, so I pruned my mailboxes back to a more reasonable
few hundred messages per account. The problems persist, however, and GW
Micro can offer little help since these problems only happen occasionally
and they cannot duplicate them in house.
I decided to give the Accessibility Answer Desk a try. I explained the
problem and outlined the steps I had taken to try to solve it. When I
mentioned the previous size of my .PST data files the Answer Desk
representative suggested that even though I had reduced their size, there
may still be some leftover settings that were problematic and causing my
troubles.
The tech suggested I create a new Outlook identity, reestablish my e-mail
accounts and then delete the original identity. This was something no one
had ever suggested before, and it was definitely worth a try. The tech
offered to do this for me, so I sat back, followed along as he took
control of my computer, and a half-hour later the deed was done.
I cannot report this solved the problem, but I am now more convinced than
ever my Outlook fits and restarts are a screen reader issue, not an
Outlook bug. I was encouraged to call back if the change of identities did
not help, but for now let's score this one "still frustrated," on my part,
and for Microsoft, "a commendable effort."
Summing Up
For now Microsoft's accessibility support team is focused on assisting
with Windows and MS Office, but they plan to add additional Microsoft
consumer products in the near future. They also hope to begin serving
other areas outside of North America. In the meantime, if users have
problems with products other than Windows or MS Office the Accessibility
Answer Desk reps can consult and collaborate with support reps from other
product teams to guide you through their use with accessibility services
and help solve setup and configuration problems.
I was also told by Lay-Flurrie that the accessibility customers' reps have
all received orientation training in the most popular screen readers. This
does not mean they are ready to help you create a Window-Eyes hyperactive
window, or debug a Jaws script. What it does mean, I suspect, is that
callers are a lot less likely to get caught in that all-too-familiar
situation where the screen reader vendor insists your problem is with the
third party application, while the application support rep assures you
that your screen reader that he doesn't know anything about must be
interfering with the application's ability to do its job.
Microsoft's Accessibility Answer Desk appears to be casting a very wide
net when it comes to defining accessibility issues. Along with the sorts
of issues I described above, they will apparently also assist users of
accessibility services--even third-party access software users--with tasks
as varied as setting up an Outlook.com e-mail account, changing default
Word fonts and margin settings, learning to control a Windows PC with
speech, and setting up virtual keyboards, head mice and other
non-traditional input devices.
Apple has offered a similar accessibility resource for the past few years.
They learned early that true accessibility involves more than simply
supplying the tools--you also have to educate users and offer support when
needed. It's heartening to see Microsoft has finally "seen the light," so
to speak, and I look forward to other major players tossing their hats
into the ring.
Contact Information
Microsoft's Accessibility Answer Desk is available in North America from
5am to 9pm PST during the week, and 6am to 3pm on the weekends. English
language only.
Phone: 800-936-5900
Web contact form
Online chat will be supported in the near future.
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