Word - creating and testing accessible documents

As evidence for the course I've created a one page accessible document. Actually, it's only half a page long - but I thought I'd start small!

I currently work for The Reading Agency and regularly produce documents for them. They have a template guide for documents which includes the use of Styles in Word. An appropriately structured document benefits all users, but can be particularly beneficial to disabled users because:

• A Document Map can be used to navigate through a structured document
• Screen readers can jump to sections tagged as 'heading'
• A document can be quickly amended by the author or user, to amend display styles such as fonts
• When exported to a PDF the headings create a navigation structure for the PDF
• A motor impaired user can navigate through a document using minimal input
• Headings can be used to automatically generate a table of contents, improving productivity

To create the document I first opened a template they'd provided which already had the Styles included. My preferred way of adding Styles was to first create the document (in the template), then remove all formatting and then add the Styles. This might not be the quickest way, but I'm still getting to grips with this all!

Working in Word on a Mac is often slightly different to using a PC. For example, to view the Document map I have to select: View menu > Navigation pane, then Navigation pane > dropdown menu Document map. In Word for a PC it's just View menu > Document map - much simpler!

Another issue with Word on a Mac is that you cannot add alternative text to images. It's good practice to add alternative text for users who have print related difficulties as screen readers read out the alternative text. Also visually impaired users who magnify documents can benefit from an image description rather than scrolling between the alternative text and image. On the template I'm using the header containing The Reading Agency's logo, but I have no method of adding alternative text 'The Reading Agency logo'. Two solutions would be to either remove the logo or ask a colleague with Word for a PC to add alternative text. My solution on this occassion was to add '..being run by The Reading Agency' to the body text to indicate that this organisation had created the document. In a previous version of the document, the name of The Reading Agency was only in the header logo.

Another frustration is not being able to user test a document. I used to work at BBC Learning where we'd create websites for adult learners. As part of the development process we would test websites on different browsers and using different technology such as screen-readers. It's frustrating not to be able to do the same in Word. I'd like to experience 'jumping' from one header to the next, but haven't come across some free software which would replicate this experience for me on a Mac. But, through hunting around I did find NonVisual Desktop Access for the PC and a great web-based screen reader called WebAnywhere - I'm planning to show the later to some students.

I've sent the incredibly short document to my peer Kathy, I'm looking forward to her feedback.

P.S. For this post I created a Dropbox account to enable me to share documents with my peer, Assessor and IV. I chose to use Dropbox as it uses cloud computing and I can save documents in a public folder, in which I can add document I want to share with other internet users. Dropbox generates URLs which I can link to so users can download documents, as I've done at the top of this blog.