Welcome to the start of a blog series exploring accessibility features, and creating accessible content in Office applications!

Why are we focussing on Office Applications? Well, because they’re commonly used in workplaces, by students, and for personal use. But also, because both staff and students have access to Office applications through the College!

Accessible Best Practices Across Office Applications

There are some accessible best practices that are specific to certain applications (which we promise will be explored in future posts).

This blog post is going to outline some of the more commonly used (or missed) Accessible Best Practices that can be applied in a variety of Office Applications!

Tables

• Table headers need to be repeated if the table spans multiple pages
• Use table captions – explain what the data in the table is showing
• Tables need to work (convey the information) on all platforms – phones, computers, tablets

Learn how to create tables following Accessible Best Practices:

• Accessible Tables in Word – Microsoft Support Article
• Accessible Tables in PowerPoint – Microsoft Support Article

Now if you checked these links out, you’d see it’s recommended that you present the data in another way… Perhaps, in a list?…

Lists

• Use actual lists! Don’t just add a – or type 1. – these are not actual lists and will not be read as a list by any screen reading or read aloud technologies
• Use the built in list formatting
  • Ordered – numbers or letters
  • Unordered – symbols like bullet points
• Capitalize the first word of every list item

Learn how to create Accessible Lists in Word – Microsoft Support Article

Text

• Avoid italics
• Avoid ALL CAPS
• Save underline formatting for links
• Consider using a dark grey font color (instead of black)
• Chunk or group information (avoid a “wall of text”)

Learn about Accessible Font Format and Color – Microsoft Support Article.

Language

• Use simple, clear and concise language
  • Don’t use unnecessarily complex words
  • “Get to the point” – say what you mean using as few of words that makes sense
  • Do use words that do not make your meaning confusing… Like that sentence… Use words that make your message clear
• Avoid “ableist” language, or language that assumes someone’s abilities
  • Instead of “I am just going to run over there” use “I am just going over there”
• When using abbreviations, ensure that you define that abbreviation at least once

Color Contrast

Without getting too technical, Accessibility Checkers built into Office applications do a good job at checking for appropriate color contrast, in typed text. Color contrast in images needs to be manually checked with a color contrast checker such as this Colour Contrast Analyser free for download on Windows and Mac.

Side note on color: color should never be used alone to convey a message.

Learn about accessible color contrast of text:

• Accessible Font Colors in Word – Microsoft Support
• Accessible Font Color in PowerPoint – Microsoft Support

Images

• Images must have alternative text (alt. text)
  • Alt. Text needs to be meaningful and describe what the image is/why is is included?
  • Only images that are purely decorative (for example: design elements) may be marked as decorative
  • Keep alt. text under 150 characters (use an image description when needed)
• Use Image Descriptions is alt. text is becoming too long
• Images need to be of good quality (not blurry or pixelated), even when magnified!
• Don’t overuse images

Need help writing alt. text or image descriptions? Use this Image Accessibility Creator Tool by Streamlit as a starting point! You’ll need to verify the output add any necessary context.

Additional Resources

By chance, are you an instructor at the College? If you are, make sure you check out the “Instructors Guide to Accessible Courses” Tutorial in LEARN! If you are not already enrolled, you can self-enroll through the My Learning section in HRIS.