Microsoft 365 (Office)

Video Intro

(music)When we create documents that are accessible to all, we ensure a more inclusive experience for everyone. This Word doc visually looks good and includes hyperlinks and images. I’m going to show you how people who are blindor have low vision will consume the doc. They use a screen reader

The problem

like the one built into Windows called Narrator. Listen to what it says. Renewable energy sources. Defining renewable energy. Page one, picture, blank. The proliferation of renewable energy sources, see link, here, will be key to not only becoming carbon neutral… So this document looks fine, but it isn’t accessible to all since the screen reader doesn’t recognize the heading and the picture and hyperlinks are useless. Let me show you Microsoft Office’s built in tools so you can fix these issues and make your documents accessible to all.

Check accessibility

First, start with the Check Accessibility button. It’s in the Review tab with the other tools you use to proof your docs. Select it, and a panel opens with a list of items we can address. Alt text provides context to screen readers, as well as makes images easier to search and find. You may find automatic descriptions already here. Check and edit them to describe what is seen. If the images are not informative, like this arty separator, select Mark as decorative. For headings, we just don’t want to bold and choose a bigger font. Screen readers will read it like a sentence. We use headings to organize a document. Select a heading style from the ribbon, and you’ll get a formatted design. Plus, headings can help you make a table of contents. And the screen reader will announce it’s a heading. Heading two, defining renewable energy. Three wind turbines on a wind farm at twilight. You’ll find the Accessibility Checker in other Office apps like Outlook and Excel. You can look for a specific issue too, like merged cells. You can fix tables which screen readers might repeat or skipif the cells are merged. Simply select Unmerge in the menu.

Pie chart

Also in Excel: check out this chart. Look good to you? Well, anyone who is colorblind may have challenges understanding the chart. Just adding data titles next to each part of the pie chart allows the information to be more inclusive. Now we can all see Pineapple has the biggest slice.

Accessibility checker

In PowerPoint, use Accessibility Checker to see the reading order of slides. Select the arrow to see a dropdown and fix the order so a screen reader will read it top to bottom left to right. When you’re in a Teams meeting and ready to present, use PowerPoint Live. It can help to make meetings inclusive for everyone, including captions and view slides in high contrast if needed. When you can solve for one person, the benefits extend to many. There’s more you can do with accessibility in your documents, and you can start at support.microsoft.com/accessibility.