Accessibility in SharePoint

The SharePoint Add-in portions of this article are legacy guidance. The retirement below doesn't retire the other APIs or platforms discussed here.

Learn about the features, products, and services that make SharePoint accessible for people with disabilities, and find developer resources that can help you design and build apps and websites that support key accessibility scenarios. Accessible technology enables users to interact with computers and applications in different ways to help meet their visual, hearing, speech, dexterity, and cognitive needs. Accessible technology includes features, options, and utilities that are built into the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products, in addition to third-party hardware and software add-ons (also known as assistive technology).

Microsoft strives to build products that are accessible to everyone. For information about these efforts, see the Microsoft Accessibility site.

Accessibility features in SharePoint

SharePoint supports the accessibility features of common web browsers to enable you to access and manage SharePoint sites. Web browsers provide support for keyboard interactions so that users who don't use a mouse can use a keyboard to navigate the user interface and perform actions in SharePoint.

For more information about accessibility features in SharePoint, see the following articles:

• Accessibility features in SharePoint products
• Keyboard shortcuts in SharePoint Online

Users who have site administrator responsibilities typically use the SharePoint Central Administration site to manage deployments. A mouse and keyboard are the typical devices that you use to interact with Central Administration. For more information about accessibility for administrators and other IT pros in SharePoint, see Accessibility for SharePoint.

Users who have devices that support touch can use gestures to complete operations. For more information, see Touch on MSDN, and the Office Touch Guide on Office.com.

Developing accessible apps and websites

As you design and build apps and solutions for SharePoint, you should implement markup and code to support key accessibility scenarios, including keyboard accessibility, proper text contrast, and screen reading.

For information about developing accessible applications and websites, see Resources for Designing Accessible Applications in the Visual Studio documentation.

For information about Windows app development and providing accessibility in Windows Store apps, see the following sections in the Windows Dev Center:

• Accessibility
• Design for Accessibility (Windows Store apps)
• Meeting basic accessibility requirements (Windows Store apps using JavaScript and HTML)
• Accessibility in Windows Store apps using JavaScript

Accessibility features in Visual Studio

If you build solutions and apps for SharePoint in Visual Studio, you'll find that Visual Studio 2012 provides default shortcut key combinations to help you navigate and code within the IDE. For more information about accessibility features in Visual Studio, see Accessibility Features of Visual Studio. For a list of Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts, see Pre-defined Keyboard Shortcuts.

Accessibility in web browsers

SharePoint administrators and users depend on the accessibility features that web browsers provide. SharePoint supports the accessibility features of typical browsers. Table 1 contains links to resources that describe the accessibility features that typical browsers support.

Table 1. Accessibility features in typical web browsers

See also

• Accessibility
• Microsoft Accessibility Resource Centers
• Guidelines and checklist for accessibility
• SharePoint Add-ins UX design guidelines
• Develop SharePoint Add-ins
• Programming models in SharePoint
• Accessibility in Microsoft Products
• Accessibility for SharePoint