Creating with accessibility
in mind
Text
There are a few simple things you can do to make sure your document, presentation, article or digital resource you are creating is accessible:
Use styles where possible to show where the headings are. For a document, such as dissertation, report, proposal, article, etc. you can use the resource on the dedicated Word for Large Documents website (opens in a new tab) to learn how to use styles.
For online documents or for document that will be printed with font size 12pt or smaller use Sans-serif fonts like Aptos, Arial or Calibri.
If you have screenshots of tables or text that you want to use, please recreate them with the tools in the software you are using (Word, PowerPoint, etc.).
Images and Drawings
Adding Alt-text to images and drawings
This video from Microsoft shows how to add Alt-text in older versions of Word (works exactly the same way in PowerPoint) (opens in a new tab).
If the image is purely decorative, just say "decorative" in the Alt-text.
To add Alt-text to an image in a newer version of Microsoft Office, click on the image and the Picture Tools - Format tab will appear in the ribbon at the top. Go to it and click on the Alt-Text icon and a side panel will open on the right hand side allowing you to type the description of the image or mark it as decorative.
Some tips
Avoid using an image as a background of text as the text may be more difficult to read over the image.
Avoid using images of text (like screenshots of text) when it can be simply typed as text.
Colours
Use of colours
Use solid colours rather than gradient colours to easily achieve the contrast needed and to reduce visual stress.
Use colours consistently and if there is colour coding, use colours that would be still distinguishable even if converted to greyscale.
Contrast
Pick your colours to achieve good contrast between text and background. You can test if your colour choices have good contrast using www.whocanuse.com (opens in a new tab). To do that, you will need the HEX codes of the colours you want to test. This is how you can find them:
When using Microsoft Office 2019
If using Microsoft Office 2019, you can find the RGB (Red, Green and Blue) components of the colours you want as demonstrated above and then convert the RGB to HEX code here https://www.google.com/search?q=color+picker.
When using Microsoft 365
If using Microsoft 365, you can find the Hex code of the colour you want as demonstrated above.
When using anything else
If using any other platform or software, you can take a screenshot and then use https://imagecolorpicker.com/ (shown above) to find the HEX code of the colour you need.
Put into HEX code of the colours for your text and background into www.whocanuse.com (opens in a new tab).
If WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) rating shown of the colour combination is Fail, change the colours (make the dark colour darker and/or the light colour lighter).
Narration for videos
YouTube
Upload the video as unlisted, wait a few minutes (hours for longer videos) for the video to be processed and then when automatic captions are available edit them (opens in a new tab).
Microsoft Word 365 - video tutorial available on using Dictate or Transcribe tools (opens in a new tab).
Testing for accessibility in MS Office
When using Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel or Outlook, you can access the accessibility checker from the Review tab in the ribbon. Simply click on it and follow the recommendations to improve the accessibility of your document. More information can be found on the Microsoft support pages (opens in a new tab).