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As one of the newest program managers on the PowerPoint team (and a recovering history major), I’m always fascinated to hear the stories behind features I now can’t imagine living without. And as one of the engineers responsible for Accessibility in PowerPoint, I care a tremendous amount about the accessibility of the software we build. So you can imagine how happy I was to see these two interests collide in one of the latest posts to the Office Engineering Blog—a backstage peek at the new Document Accessibility Checker built in to Excel, Word, and PowerPoint 2010, written by Larry Waldman from the User Experience Team.
It turns out that the story behind the Document Accessibility Checker, like the story behind our new Video Triggers feature, begins with a user request. Actually, a lot of user requests:
While user interface accessibility has been well understood for years, the accessibility of Office document content is a burgeoning new area. In particular, we’ve seen many requests from companies and governments who have been wondering how to help their employees create accessible content. To solve this problem in Office 2010 we created a document Accessibility Checker (like a spell checker, but for accessibility issues) as a core feature of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The rest of the post explains the Document Accessibility Checker in much greater detail, but the line “like a spell checker, but for accessibility issues” just about nails it.
Incidentally, Larry also highlights an unbelievably useful feature: new keyboard shortcuts for navigating the Ribbon and adjusting shapes. In PowerPoint 2010,
Though we built these new shortcuts with accessibility in mind, they end up making life easier for just about everyone. If you’re curious about the other keyboard shortcuts we swear by here on the PowerPoint team, you can read all about them here.
Working with the Office User Experience team over the past six months, I’ve been consistently floored by their dedication to making the Office experience as accessible as possible. With the addition of the Document Accessibility Checker, new keyboard shortcuts, and Video Triggers, PowerPoint 2010 will be the most accessible version yet—thanks to the hard work of engineers and designers, and feedback from customers like you. To take the new Document Accessibility Checker for a spin, download the PowerPoint 2010 Beta—and let us know what you think!
- Diana Kimball
Program Manager, PowerPoint
Comments: (7) Collapse
Hi Diana,
I have been trying to figure out if there is a way to take a power point presentation that has been set to music and upload it to YouTube. I have tried using author stream but unfourtnuately when the power point was finished uploading, the sound did not transfer (which is EXTREMELY fustrating. Any ideas??!?!?
Diana, I wanted to congratulate your PowerPoint team, and also make them aware of our efforts with the Library of Alexandria in egypt, and the world Health Organization. I am an epidemiology professor and direct a WHO Collaborating Centre During the past 10 years we have built a network of 56,000 faculty interested in global health from 172 countries. We have established a very simple system for sharing knowledge, with PowerPoint on the web. We have collected 4300 PowerPoint lectures and make these available for free (www.pitt.edu/~super1/). Last year we taught over 1 million students, and our H1N1 lecture was seen by 40 million. I just wanted to thank you at PowerPoint as PowerPoint on the web is one of the most important educational technologies. We are now working with the Library of Alexandria to network all scientists and share their best PowerPoint lectures.
Thank you Ronald E. LaPorte, Ph.D., director, WHO Collaborating Center and Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh
It seems a bit ironic to be talking about accessibility when PowerPoint doesn't use TSF and hence is still incompatible with those of us who need to use speech recognition. However, I must say that one omission aside (which is surprisingly inconsistent with Microsoft's committment to providing a better experience to customers with disabilities), the 2010 version is an outstanding improvement and accomplishment. Steven Lindell, Professor of Computer Science
Haverford College, PA
I am also disappointed by the lack of TSF and incompatibility with speech recognition. I rely on speech recognition for almost all my computer input. Its the best alternative for people unable to use the keyboard and mouse due to carpal tunnel or other problems.
Professor Lindell and Jason—thank you for your comments about TSF support, and especially for emphasizing the importance of speech recognition to your work. TSF is certainly on our radar going forward, and comments like yours help us to get a clearer picture of the role speech recognition might play in creating presentations.
Why does this blog site require an auditory only CAPTCHA/security tool? It is ironic to find it on a page with an article about Accessibility in PowerPoint 2010! Still, shouldn't accessibility be integrated into everything that is a part of MSDN?
Hi Diana, All lovely ideas and doubtless useful, but why, oh why did you get rid of the alt key/underscore 'accessibility'? This is without doubt the fastest way of operating this and other programs. I really would love to know. Thanks Si
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