[ad_1]
Inaccessible content material is in every single place within the digital world. Nearly 97 p.c of dwelling pages on the general public internet comprise points like lacking picture descriptions, movies with out captions, and hard-to-read textual content colours that cut back their legibility and usefulness for individuals with disabilities.1 The similar points pervade the emails, slide decks, paperwork, and spreadsheets all of us create each day. This creates limitations that maintain our colleagues and coworkers from doing their jobs successfully, forestall college students from getting probably the most out of their training, and hinder authors from reaching their broadest potential viewers. We all share the duty of breaking down these limitations by making our personal content material accessible—however typically that’s simpler mentioned than finished.
Over the previous few years, we’ve been working to convey accessibility into the circulation 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
Today, I’m excited to announce a serious 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 circulation of labor.
Microsoft 365
Powerful instruments aid you work, study, manage, join, and create.
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 retaining you within the circulation of labor. Expanding on the present Accessibility Checker, Accessibility Assistant introduces three key improvements: higher defaults to forestall points earlier than they happen, real-time and in-context remediation to appropriate points as they come up, and clear, easy steerage that seems within the circulation of labor. Let’s take a better look.
Make extra accessible decisions 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 simplest ways to resolve a difficulty is to forestall it from taking place 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 shade picker in Microsoft 365 Apps that accounts for each artistic license and the necessity for ample distinction between textual content and its background.
The new shade picker expertise has two modes. One appears to be like a lot the identical as earlier than however provides a tooltip to assist information you towards colours with ample distinction. While toggling the high-contrast swap takes you to the opposite expertise, which narrows the obtainable shade choices that meet distinction necessities (plus an extra row of accessible choices that align with the chosen theme and design).
Figure 1. New shade picker expertise in Microsoft Word.
Learn and repair within the circulation of labor
Our prospects inform us they’re obsessed with making content material accessible however that our instruments don’t make it as straightforward because it might 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. This sort of workflow helps creators keep away from attending to the tip of a undertaking and discovering an enormous listing of points that will take time and power to repair.
We embraced this suggestion with Accessibility Assistant. To convey that very same degree of immediacy and ease to the accessibility house, we have now carried out a brand new sort of flag to name consideration to accessibility points whilst you write.
Figure 2. Contextual flagging of textual content distinction points in Microsoft Word.
The first-class of concern these flags will handle is low distinction between textual content and background—probably the most frequent accessibility concern we see in Microsoft Word paperwork. When you choose a textual content shade that doesn’t meet commonplace distinction pointers, a small accessibility icon seems within the margin. And identical to with the purple squiggles of the spellchecker, clicking the icon brings up a contextual card that will help you make a fast correction and transfer on.
Correct accessibility points extra simply
In retaining with our mission to make Microsoft 365 assist creators of all skills and preferences, it’s essential to acknowledge that some authors choose 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 popular to examine spelling and grammar whereas they work (28 p.c), on the finish (19 p.c), and each all through and on the finish (31 p.c).3
Figure 3. When spelling and grammar are checked based mostly on inner analysis.
To assist the mixed 50 p.c of creators who prefer to examine for points on the finish, we will even be rolling out a brand new Accessibility Assistant pane later in 2023. The pane gives a clear, environment friendly interface like Microsoft Editor, with plain-language explanations that aid you handle total classes of accessibility points extra simply. As you click on by means of the listing, you’re taken on to the situation of every concern whereas the pane recommends an answer—no specialist information crucial.
Figure 4. Accessibility Assistant pane in Microsoft Word.
Start creating extra accessible content material as we speak
As creators and reviewers of content material, all of us maintain accountability for creating content material that may be accessed equitably by all. In the approaching weeks, we’ll begin rolling out Accessibility Assistant. We will work with the Microsoft 365 Insiders neighborhood to validate and finetune the expertise within Word on Windows, with extra apps and experiences to comply with.
Over time, Accessibility Assistant will totally change the Accessibility Checker throughout the core Microsoft 365 Apps. As it does so, it’ll prolong to cowl a broader vary of points and can incorporate extra clever options to make it even easier and extra automated to create content material that everybody can use. Join the Microsoft 365 Insider Program as we speak to be among the many first to attempt the Accessibility Assistant, and be sure you tell us what you suppose utilizing the suggestions instrument within the app. And there’s no want to attend—you may go to our assist website as we speak to study extra about easy methods to begin making your content material accessible in Microsoft 365, subscribe to my quarterly updates to comply with the newest developments, or attain out to Microsoft’s Disability Answer Desk to offer suggestions and entry devoted assist.
Get began with Microsoft 365 as we speak.
1The 2022 report on the accessibility of the highest 1,000,000 dwelling pages, The WebAIM Million, WebAIM Projects, 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 Blog. January 20, 2022.
3Accessible Content and Content Creators Research, Microsoft. January 2021.