Signs of Accessibility Progress

Signs of Accessibility Progress

When you work in the accessibility field, it can be a lonely task. You sometimes feel like you’re yelling in the wind and nobody really hears you or pays attention to what you say. Well, I’m starting to realize that tides are finally turning. A lot of it has to do with Microsoft’s efforts in making things a lot easier when it comes to making things accessible within their products. But there also needs to be a “buy-in” from the organization. 

Back in December here at OLG, we celebrated the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities.  I was personally surprised as to how many people showed up. Our agenda was quite heavy in content and being the last to present, I wasn’t sure if the information I shared would stick. Evidently, it did. 

One of my topics was on document accessibility; more precisely when using Office 365. I went through a quick overview on how to create (real) headings, table of contents, accessible tables, how to add descriptions to images, how to run the accessibility checker to assess your handy work  and finally how to convert to a structurally tagged PDF right from Word. This stuff is second nature to me, but not everyone understands the need to follow Microsoft standards when creating a document and its benefits when it’s done correctly. Anyway, forward a month later, I now have people sending me documents that are already properly formatted, have the appropriate features applied and I have a lot less document remediation to do. Just this morning, I received my first Outlook message with properly tagged images. It’s pretty darn neat to see that people were listening and are applying what they have learned. 

For more information on Document accessibility in Word visit: http://bit.ly/2Ho1Sl4