Inaccessible content material is all over the place within the digital world. Almost 97 % of residence pages on the general public internet include points like lacking picture descriptions, movies with out captions, and hard-to-read textual content colours that cut back their legibility and usefulness for folks with disabilities.1 The identical points pervade the emails, slide decks, paperwork, and spreadsheets all of us create day-after-day. This creates boundaries that hold our colleagues and coworkers from doing their jobs successfully, stop college students from getting essentially the most out of their training, and hinder authors from reaching their broadest attainable viewers. All of us share the duty of breaking down these boundaries by making our personal content material accessible—however usually that’s simpler mentioned than achieved.
Over the previous few years, we’ve been working to carry accessibility into the circulate of content material creation inside Microsoft 365—to make checking accessibility as pure and easy as checking spelling and grammar. I’ve shared a few of our progress towards this purpose elsewhere.2
At the moment, I’m excited to announce a significant step towards that purpose with the introduction of Accessibility Assistant in Microsoft 365, a strong set of instruments that may assist creators produce extra accessible content material with much less effort—and all inside your pure circulate of labor.
Microsoft 365
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Accessibility Assistant helps you make extra accessible content material with much less effort
Our purpose is to make checking and fixing accessibility points pure and easy, whereas protecting you within the circulate of labor. Increasing on the prevailing Accessibility Checker, Accessibility Assistant introduces three key improvements: higher defaults to stop points earlier than they happen, real-time and in-context remediation to right points as they come up, and clear, easy steering that seems within the circulate of labor. Let’s take a more in-depth look.
Make extra accessible selections by default
With Accessibility Assistant, we’re bringing the identical philosophy we comply with in creating our merchandise to the artwork of content material creation: one of the best ways to unravel a problem is to stop it from occurring within the first place. For instance, we all know it may be difficult to decide on colours that make content material each lovely and accessible. To assist our prospects navigate this problem, we’re introducing a brand new coloration picker in Microsoft 365 Apps that accounts for each inventive license and the necessity for ample distinction between textual content and its background.
The brand new coloration picker expertise has two modes. One seems a lot the identical as earlier than however provides a tooltip to assist information you towards colours with ample distinction. Whereas toggling the high-contrast swap takes you to the opposite expertise, which narrows the obtainable coloration choices that meet distinction necessities (plus an extra row of accessible choices that align with the chosen theme and design).
Determine 1. New coloration picker expertise in Microsoft Phrase.
Study and repair within the circulate of labor
Our prospects inform us they’re enthusiastic about making content material accessible however that our instruments don’t make it as simple because it may very well be. Many have requested us to make our accessibility instruments work extra just like the spellchecker—flagging points as they happen and offering easy fixes within the second. Such a workflow helps creators keep away from attending to the tip of a mission and discovering an enormous checklist of points that may take time and power to repair.
We embraced this suggestion with Accessibility Assistant. To carry that very same degree of immediacy and ease to the accessibility area, we’ve got applied a brand new sort of flag to name consideration to accessibility points whilst you write.
Determine 2. Contextual flagging of textual content distinction points in Microsoft Phrase.
The primary class of challenge these flags will handle is low distinction between textual content and background—essentially the most frequent accessibility challenge we see in Microsoft Phrase paperwork. When you choose a textual content coloration that doesn’t meet normal distinction pointers, a small accessibility icon seems within the margin. And identical to with the pink squiggles of the spellchecker, clicking the icon brings up a contextual card that can assist you make a fast correction and transfer on.
Right accessibility points extra simply
In step with our mission to make Microsoft 365 assist creators of all skills and preferences, it’s essential to acknowledge that some authors favor to carry off on making revisions till they’re completed writing. In an inner examine of content material creators, we discovered an almost even cut up amongst those that most well-liked to test spelling and grammar whereas they work (28 %), on the finish (19 %), and each all through and on the finish (31 %).3
Determine 3. When spelling and grammar are checked primarily based on inner analysis.
To assist the mixed 50 % of creators who wish to test for points on the finish, we can even be rolling out a brand new Accessibility Assistant pane later in 2023. The pane offers a clear, environment friendly interface like Microsoft Editor, with plain-language explanations that assist you handle complete classes of accessibility points extra simply. As you click on by the checklist, you’re taken on to the situation of every challenge whereas the pane recommends an answer—no specialist information vital.
Determine 4. Accessibility Assistant pane in Microsoft Phrase.
Begin creating extra accessible content material right this moment
As creators and reviewers of content material, all of us maintain accountability for creating content material that may be accessed equitably by all. Within the coming weeks, we’ll begin rolling out Accessibility Assistant. We are going to work with the Microsoft 365 Insiders group to validate and finetune the expertise inside Phrase on Home windows, with extra apps and experiences to comply with.
Over time, Accessibility Assistant will totally substitute the Accessibility Checker throughout the core Microsoft 365 Apps. Because it does so, it’ll prolong to cowl a broader vary of points and can incorporate extra clever options to make it even less complicated and extra automated to create content material that everybody can use. Be a part of the Microsoft 365 Insider Program right this moment to be among the many first to strive the Accessibility Assistant, and make sure to tell us what you assume utilizing the suggestions software within the app. And there’s no want to attend—you may go to our assist website right this moment to be taught extra about the right way to begin making your content material accessible in Microsoft 365, subscribe to my quarterly updates to comply with the most recent developments, or attain out to Microsoft’s Incapacity Reply Desk to provide suggestions and entry devoted assist.
Get began with Microsoft 365 right this moment.
1The 2022 report on the accessibility of the highest 1,000,000 residence pages, The WebAIM Million, WebAIM Tasks, WebAIM. March 31, 2022.
2Making it simpler to create content material that everybody can use—what’s new in Microsoft 365 accessibility options for Winter 2022, Aleš Holeček, Microsoft Accessibility Weblog. January 20, 2022.
3Accessible Content material and Content material Creators Analysis, Microsoft. January 2021.
