Word Designing with Accessibility

Headings 

• Heading styles give a document structure by category or topic (Heading 1 through 6).
• Use of headings to ease navigation through a document.
• Headings allow for a table of contents to be generated automatically.

Styles

• Use Styles Pane for font selection.
• Use Strong and Emphasis in your Styles Pane menu instead of bold and italic.
• Avoid underlining text unless it’s a link.
• Use bullet points to summarize information and numbered lists to show sequential data.

Images 

• Use alternative text (alt text), a written description of images and/or objects.
• Be brief and descriptive.
• “Image of…”or “photo of…” or “graphic of” is not needed.
• The best method to practice is using captions, this will provide equal access to all users.
• Best Practices for Accessible Images

Color

• Select colors with deep contrast.
• Use Colour Contrast Analyser tool to ensure accessible contrast.
• Provide captions if using color to convey meaning i.e. which section is highlighted in red?

Links 

• Links should be clear and directly relate to the title or heading of the linked page.
• Use “Visit the Universal Design Center” instead of “Click here for more details.”
• Do not use the same link text to refer to different resources.
• Do not use different link text to refer to the same resources.
• Best Practices for Accessible Links

Tables

• Use tables to organize data not format information.
• Create table headings.
• Include table captions or brief description.
• Avoid merged, split, or blank cells.

Multimedia 

• Ensure video files have captions.
• Ensure audio files have transcripts.
• To request media captioning from NCOD 

Reading Order

• Logical reading order: read information from left to right and from top to bottom.
• If you use the “Table” function to organize your information, do not nest tables
  within a table and make sure to repeat header row information if your table
  extends more than one page.

Accessibility Checker

• Use the built-in Accessibility Checker in Word.
• The checker will scan for errors and provide tips on how to fix them.