Microsoft 365: Tools for accessibility and inclusion

Accessibility should be the standard, not the exception. Fortunately, that is the direction culture is shifting. Microsoft 365 products are designed with accessible and inclusive features that work with any individual to better create, interact with, understand, and retain content. Documents, presentations, meetings, and emails can be better--more accessible, inclusive, easier to create, intuitive, interactive, successful. Here are seven accessibility and inclusivity tools and the Microsoft 365 applications they can be used within.

Read Aloud

Listen to whole documents, emails, or presentations as it is read by a narrator. You may also choose to have the narrator read selected portions of a text.

This function aids visually impaired individuals and those with reading-based learning disabilities. Read Aloud enhances reading comprehension and allows readers to focus on the text by ingesting it in more than one way (through the eyes and/or the ears as opposed to just the eyes). It also improves experiences for those with tired eyes, auditory learners, and anyone who just wants to listen rather than read for a while. This function also aids a writer’s revision process by hearing their own words in another’s voice.

Read Aloud is available in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Microsoft Lens.

Dictate

This speech-to-text technology can be used, as the name suggests, to dictate what you say into text on the screen. Dictate can also translate what you say to over 60 languages.

Dictate aids physically impaired individuals who cannot type or struggle to type and auditory learners. Also, if you’ve ever struggled to write or type as fast as your mind was moving, or if speaking your ideas sometimes feels easier than writing them down, try Dictate. This function allows a writer to sit back and let their ideas flow more freely.

This tool is available in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote.

Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is a collection of many tools and functionalities that improves reading/language fluency and comprehension by allowing a reader to adjust page color, column width, line focus, and text spacing. A reader can enable syllable identification and allow parts of speech to be color coded (ex: nouns are purple, verbs are blue, adjectives are green). Immersive Reader includes an enhanced Read Aloud with clear enunciation.

This host of tools aids speakers of other languages learn the target language (such as Spanish as a first language learning English as a second language), those with reading-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia, and anyone else who is working on reading/language fluency and comprehension. Changing the page color can create greater or less contrast and reduce eye strain. Column width, line focus, and text spacing adjust what the reader sees, reducing distractions. Syllable identification separates syllables to aid pronunciation practice. Color-coded parts of speech help a reader learn standards of syntax, or the order of words in a sentence.

This tool is available in Word, Teams, Outlook, OneNote, Microsoft Lens, and Microsoft Edge.

Captions

Autogenerate captions live or for recorded meetings/presentations to provide a visual complement or replacement to audio. Translate into other languages for meeting/presentation subtitles. In meetings with multiple speakers, speech can be attributed and labeled by speaker name.

This tool aids hearing impaired individuals. Captions can also increase focus and comprehension of meeting or presentation content for those with learning disabilities, a reading/writing learning style, or who need a focus aid. English as a second language speakers may find reading content a helpful addition to listening to content.

Captions can be generated in Teams and PowerPoint.

Translate

Translate content of emails, documents, or presentations to over 60 target languages.

This tool is relatively straightforward: Speakers of other languages can access and understand the content that you create, or vice versa. The translate tool boosts your ability to reach or be reached on a more global scale, and cross-cultural communication and collaboration is enhanced.

Translation is available in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Microsoft Lens

Microsoft Lens scans print documents or whiteboards to make them readable and accessible in a digital form. These scanned items can be converted to PDFs, Word documents, or PowerPoints. Read Aloud and Immersive Reader are available tools within Microsoft Lens.

This is an ideal tool for content to be saved that would otherwise be erased and lost, and which needs to be saved in a digital format to be accessible to others, available remotely, and read using digital aid like Immersive Reader and Immersive Reader. Individuals who do not have access to scanning machines, yet who need to transfer print content to a digital form, will benefit from this app and save valuable time manually recreating these documents. If a planning or brainstorming meeting using a whiteboard got a little messy, this app can make hard-to-read handwriting more legible.

Microsoft Lens is available as a free application.

Accessibility Check

This tool provides prompts to enhance the accessibility of content within emails, documents, or presentations. Such prompts include adding alternative text for images, inserting captions for audio, and enhancing the contrast between background and text.

Accessibility Check creates a standard for accessible content. Content creators are aided to practice implementing accessibility, and soon this practice will become habit and automatic. The goal of accessibility being the standard instead of the exception becomes closer with Accessibility Check.

This tool is available in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Excel.

Through these tools, content creators are better able to have their needs met and meet the needs of their audiences. Receivers have a heightened experience with content. Physically disabled and neurodiverse individuals will experience increased accessibility and inclusivity, as will speakers of other languages. In a world where focus and value is being rightfully placed on making the world navigable for all, these seven tools of accessibility and inclusivity within Microsoft 365 products are important components of the larger cultural shift.