Not only is making your content accessible the right thing to do, it’s also the law. Companies have been sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act for not making their content accessible. Additionally, federal agencies are required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to make their content accessible. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services takes it a step further and has its own set of standards that go beyond the Section 508 requirements.
But where do you start? With the number of accessibility standards and considerations, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Read on for tools to help you get started.
The World Health Organization estimates that 16% of the global population experiences a disability. That doesn’t consider temporary or situational disabilities.
Accessibility Tools
Accessibility is the right thing to do for the 15-20 percent of Americans with a disability, but universal design principles incorporate accessibility for all users regardless if they are disabled or not and will make your documents available to the broadest audience possible. Below are some tools that will help you on your journey of making your content more accessible for everyone. Best of all, these tools are free and easy to implement in your authoring processes.
These resources are organized in order of a suggested workflow. Start with the tools at the top and flow through the tools as your work on developing accessible content progresses.
Color Contrast Analyzer
TPGi’s Colour Contrast Analyser is a free tool that will help you ensure your font color contrast is accessible to readers with colorblindness and low vision. As a bonus, you can use it to determine the RGB and hex codes if you need to duplicate a color and don’t have that information in a style guide or elsewhere. Download the Colour Contrast Analyser.
Microsoft Word Styles
Formatting using Styles in Microsoft Word (as opposed to manually formatting from the ribbon) supports screen reader accessibility and creates much cleaner PDFs than a manually formatted document. Read the article Customize or create new styles for more information.
Microsoft Accessibility Checker
All Microsoft 365 products have a built-in accessibility checker that will help make your email, PowerPoint, Word, or other MS product more accessible. Read the article Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker for more information.
Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader Accessibility Check
Much like Microsoft’s accessibility tool, the PDF Accessibility Check can provide details about where accessibility improvements are needed, or it might direct you to check some items manually, like logical reading order or color contrast. For best results, consider accessibility (like by using MS Word’s Styles feature) prior to creating your PDF. Read the articles Create and verify PDF accessibility and Creating accessible PDFs for more information.
Note: The tools above will help you get started in accessibility practices; these practices make your documents more broadly accessible. However, they will not produce a 508-compliant document. Remediation for Section 508 compliance is a more involved process that requires more advanced checkers. To check your progress, use a screen reader to test how accessible your documents are.
Narrator/Screen Readers
Narrator is Microsoft’s screen-reading app in Windows 11. Using a screen reader to test your documents will give you a better idea of how a person using a screen reader experiences your electronic documents. Read the article Complete guide to Narrator for more information. Read the article 10 Free Screen Readers for Blind or Visually Impaired Users to learn about additional options for free screen readers.
Next steps
To learn more about specific requirements for Section 508 compliance and more advanced tools for testing your digital documents, check out our free short e-learning module on WCAG 2.1 and Testing for Digital Accessibility.
If all of this sounds overwhelming to you, we’re here to help. Our team includes accessibility experts, designers, and developers who are ready to guide you through the process or take your project from concept to completion.
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