Color
So I've been having some great conversations on LinkedIn about accessibility and we've spent some time focusing on colorblind safe themes. Color is a big deal in data visualizations and should always be front of mind when you're building any report. Consider your audience carefully and what impact color will have, as well as how easy it is to distinguish between the colors.
Resources
My new favorite resources that I'm going to start using for color:
- Coolors.co - Christian Boravac from DiscoverEI introduced me to this handy tool that you can use to check what your report colors will look like to someone with colorblindness.
- Microsoft Accessibility Features and Tools - Color Filters - I use the night light feature all the time, but I had no idea that you could change the color filter on your own monitor.
Audio
If you've ever tested out live captions or watched a movie in a foreign language you've probably come across some non-sensical captions at some stage. The question here is do they add more value than they detract? I'm really keen to learn more about the AI and Azure as I progress through these MS Learn Modules, as I'm sure the Artificial Intelligence that generates live captions is learning every second of every day and constantly improving, but how? I've trained OneNote to recognize my sloppy hand-writing and I've softened my US accent and adapted to using NZ vocabulary in my lessons to make them accessible to my NZ audience. You may notice I swap between using 'color' and 'colour' depending on my audience, I do the same when speaking.
I have historically turned off live captions as I found their inaccuracy to be distracting and frustrating at times, but am keen to see what is happening in the back end and how we can help improve this feature.
Resources
One key resource that is really handy:
- PowerPoint Presenter Coach - This is an awesome tool that can give you valuable feedback about your speaking pace, word use, pitch, and more. A great way to rehearse for those important meetings without calling in a favor from the family! As an added bonus - it's judgement free. You won't be graded on your presentation, just given tips and advice for what to keep doing and how to improve.
Screen Readers
Screen readers are a fantastic accessibility tool, but they sometimes need a bit of help to ensure they get all the important info in the right order.
Windows 10 has a built in screen reader "Narrator" that you can turn on. I've never used a screen reader before, so am going to start testing it out on some of the content I write.
Here's a few things I've learned to help the screen reader do a good job:
Alt Text - A picture is worth 150 characters
Okay, now this is a big one. I use a LOT of images, screenshots, GIFs and visuals in my blogs, courseware and training. I have heard of Alt Text, and seen it used in the Microsoft Docs (it comes through when you paste values), but haven't given it much more consideration than that.
It turns out that Alt Text is surprisingly easy to add to any image across the Microsoft Office suite, and in many other web and computer applications.
PAUSE NOW - and take 60 seconds to Google how to add Alt Text to the files you work with most, whether it's email, Word, blog or news posts, or even Teams messages.
Tips for good Alt Text:
- Identify image type - Images can be DECORATIVE, or ILLUSTRATIVE. If your image serves no purpose other than decor, and adds no meaning to your post or file, then no alt text is needed. Not all Alt Text will give you the option, but the Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office will let you tick 'Mark as Decorative' so that it will stop reminding you to add Alt Text to that image.
- Keep it short - Use less than 150 characters. That's heaps! To give you an idea, "Screenshot of Microsoft Word Review tab, Check Accessibility button. Click Alt Text." is 73 characters so limit yourself to a description no more than twice that long.
- Don't repeat yourself - Alt Text should add meaning to your content. If you've already stated it somewhere else (like a caption), then you don't need to repeat it in Alt Text. It's annoying having to hear/read/see the same thing twice!
Other reasons to use Alt Text
Improving accessibility should be reason enough - it's truly that important. But if you're not convinced, Alt Text helps with search engine optimization, slow internet connections, and when previewing emails without downloading the images. Below is an example of Alt Text in an email I received recently.
There are four images that haven't loaded, so the Alt Text is displayed instead:
- A person with curly hair
- A person wearing headphones and looking at a computer
- A person working on a computer
- Colorful graphic design element
What do you think of the Alt Text used in this email? How would you rate them? Can you imagine what the picture looks like?
Now let's look at the same email with the actual images:
Is that what you imagined? How would you improve the Alt Text?
Numbered Lists
As a trainer, I spend a lot of time updating course manuals and am constantly battling with poorly formatted lists. This is usually caused by a history of too many people with too little knowledge editing the document. Word is great at creating numbered lists and keeping them within a hierarchy. You can even use this within Word styles and dictate which level each style/heading applies to.
I had never thought about how important getting this right can be to a screen reader, so now I'm even more motivated to help people understand how to get this right.
Resources
- Define Your Own Lists and Turn off Auto Numbering - I recommend taking the time to learn how to generate your own multi-level list styles and take control of your document, don't let Word do it for you. Pay particular attention to the last two headings in this How-to article to see how.
Send to Back/Front determines Reading Order
Of course! This makes total sense, but I hadn't thought about how the order of items in the selection pane might matter even if they aren't overlapping. Generally we compose our PowerPoint slides and docs by creating the most important and first piece of into, then adding details, so your selection pane order will likely be close to what you want the screen reader to follow, but not always. It takes 2 seconds to check this, and the Selection Pane is super handy for other things too, so make sure you know where to find it:
From PowerPoint Home tab, click Select > Selection Pane to turn this on.
