We had a burst of activity at Brochet a few months ago when legislation changed around document accessibility.  Any submissions to Government departments are now required to be fully accessible. In practice, this means the Adobe Acrobat Accessibility checker should not identify any ‘errors’.

The changes are designed to optimise the performance of a screen reader, and whilst they are relatively basic, they are fiddly to sort out. We are keen to support our clients in making sure their submissions are fully compliant in this respect.

This article from IT Pro is enlightening in that it highlights that there is a wide range of needs that should be addressed from an accessibility standpoint, and describes how AI tools are making headway in this area.

But there are still some pitfalls. Microsoft uses AI to generate Alt text (Alternative text) for images inserted into Word files. For example, the text it suggests for the picture of the Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum above is ‘A picture containing water, outdoor, boat’. Clearly, there is more to be done to ensure that digital accessibility is truly equitable and accurate.

We ensure we keep up to date with developments in this area, so if you’re struggling to make your Microsoft Word files accessibility compliant, please give us a call.