Vision Australia

Project title: Document Accessibility Toolbar (DAT)

Grant round: 2014

Grant: $34,158

The Australian Government's Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy aims to improve web services, making online material more accessible and usable for all consumers, including those with disability.

Whilst there are global standards for accessibility of online content in HTML and PDF, no such framework exists for documents produced in Word. There are a range of techniques that can be implemented to ensure a Word document is optimised for accessibility; however, many people who create them do not have the knowledge, skills or time to implement them. Given the majority of documents online have originated from Microsoft Word, this is a significant problem.

The Digital Access team at Vision Australia have developed a Document Accessibility Toolbar as a standard add-in for Microsoft Word so that every person who creates a Word document can access a range of automated tools for the implementation of accessibility techniques.

For more information or to download the DAT, visit the Vision Australia website.

Researchers: Digital Access team, led by Neil King