Microsoft has launched a new Accessibility Assistant, which will initially be rolled out to Microsoft 365 insiders (users who voluntarily provide feedback on early access products), before eventually replacing the existing Microsoft accessibility checker across all Microsoft 365 apps.
The 2022 WebAIM Million report which investigated accessibility issues posed by the top 1,000,000 home pages across the public web, found that almost 97% of home pages contain issues such as missing image descriptions, videos without captions and difficult-to-read text colours that reduce usefulness and legibility for users with disabilities.
Microsoft claims that the Accessibility Assistant will help to address issues such as these and will introduce three key innovations: improved defaults to prevent issues from occurring, real-time remediation to correct issues as they arise, and guidance that appears in the flow of work.
[Image Source: Bloomberg]
