Accessibility & You: Practical tips for incorporating accessibility into your workplace
Accessible Spreadsheets
Creating accessible spreadsheets in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel can be a daunting task for many users across the State. As we create these products to show and share things like data, trends or status, we want to be sure that they are usable by everyone who views them.
What if one or more members of your intended audience is using assistive technology to view your sheet or table? Good news: they can still receive and understand the data you are sharing when you employ some standard techniques.
- Start with a template. Using existing templates can save time and improve accessibility for the spreadsheets you create. Both Google and Microsoft offer templates that have accessibility features built in.
- Make content easier to see. Format text to between 12 and 18 points for all cells, and use sufficient contrast (at least 4.5:1)
- Alt-text? Always. Be sure to use alternative (alt-text) for charts, graphs and images.
- Giving meaningful document and workbook titles helps an assistive technology user search and navigate your files efficiently.
- Name sheets with a sheet name that describes its content.
- Delete unused sheets to avoid unnecessary navigation.
- Use split and merged cells thoughtfully. While not forbidden, they can present issues with how your data is interpreted. The key is to ensure every piece of data has its own cell, and that empty cells are truly null data.
- Borders are incredibly helpful visual aids.
- Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
- Structural mark-up can help identify what is part of a particular table and what is not. Having well-defined row and header columns will allow a user to understand and interact with your document.
- Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate the document and find specific information. By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document.
Well-built spreadsheets are good for business and essential for users of assistive technology. While there is no surefire way to guarantee accessibility across the board, considering and implementing techniques like those listed above can go a long way.
If you would like help, or have specific questions, we would love to connect. Reach out to the Technology Accessibility Program (TAP) team at OIT_Accessibility@state.co.us.
State Agency Accessibility Planning Updates: Fiscal 2023-24 Budget
The long bill, signed by Governor Polis on May 4, 2023, included our Accessibility Budget Amendment and Senate Bill 23-244. Beginning in July, state agencies will see a single line item in their budget for accessibility. Here are some points to get you started.
- Agencies should work with their budget offices to start fiscal year budgeting for testing, remediation, staff and other accessibility needs (like training and accessibility software). Please reach out to your budget director with questions about funding.
- Focus on your total funding amount and rethink as an agency how you want to spend those dollars. This should be a collaborative discussion with your working group and include your budget office. Agencies are able to spend the funds at their discretion and aren’t beholden to the line item amounts indicated in their original budget request (e.g., FTEs, testing, remediation, etc.).
- When it comes to staff hiring using the accessibility budget, keep the following in mind:
- The budget for staff is not called out specifically so agencies will need to plan for those positions within the total budget dollars they receive.
- Positions should be non-technical roles as technical roles are required to stay within OIT. Non-technical positions include project and program managers, communications managers, web content editors and accessibility coordinators. Toles that belong in OIT include developers and technical testers.
- If agencies need more funds for accessibility-related work, then they will need to submit a Decision Item during the normal budget process.
If you would like help, or have specific questions, we are here to help. Reach out to the Technology Accessibility Program (TAP) team at OIT_Accessibility@state.co.us.
Accessibility Resources: Braille Displays
By Chelsea Cook (she/her), OIT TAP Accessibility Consultant
Last month, we discussed the history and importance of braille. Now, it's time to bring braille into the 21st Century with an explanation of refreshable braille displays, both how they work, and their advantages and disadvantages. Braille displays can be a lifesaver for people with jobs that require reading and talking simultaneously, such as telephone work or public speaking. Also, they can be handy (or vital, depending on the user) for tasks such as mathematics and programming.
A refreshable braille display is an electronic device that has braille output and either a braille or QWERTY keyboard for input. It is essentially a braille computer. Braille displays can vary widely in price, functionality and cell length. Standard displays have one line of 20 or 40 cells, but there can be as few as 14 or as many as 80-cell models. The 80-cell models are very expensive, but more on that in a moment.
They can be connected to a phone or computer to translate what a screen reader is speaking into braille, or used on their own for basic note taking and book reading. While the standard braille cell has six dots, most braille displays have an extra row at the bottom of the cell, for a total of eight dots. These extra dots are used in computer braille code, but their most common use is to serve as a cursor. Small buttons above each braille cell, called cursor routing keys, can be pressed to move the cursor to that particular cell. This makes editing text quick and efficient.
In each cell of a braille display, there are eight pins. These pins move up and down, depending on what character or letter that cell is instructed to represent, hence the “refreshable” in the name. Here is the first downside to electronic braille: pins break. When they break, they are stuck either in the up or down position, and this changes the character that cell now represents. Depending on how patient the reader is and how much money they have to get the display repaired, they can play mental gymnastics to compensate for the damaged pin, but it is still not fun and can be a downright frustrating experience. Depending on the manufacturer, repair times are quite long, from several weeks to several months.
The other main disadvantage to getting into refreshable braille displays is cost. Because displays have so many moving parts (all those pins!), they are marketed to a niche audience, and given companies' main customers are schools and employers, costs can be quite high. They are coming down, though. Orbit Research makes a 20-cell model for $700. This was unheard of when it came out, because 20- and 40-cell models with a few more features range between $2,000 to $4,000. The fanciest displays with features like scientific calculators, web browsers, media playback and recording, and word processing usually go for around $6,000.
Refreshable braille displays have been a game changer in the field of assistive technology. Depending on the subject, instead of carrying around a suitcase full of books, people can just carry around a display with an SD card. Lots and lots of text files can fit on 8 GB. The next article in this series will focus on the future technology that is on the horizon: multiline and graphics displays.
Notable & Quotable
“We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.”
- Stevie Wonder, singer-songwriter