This year’s Ability Summit is underway and the company has revealed its latest advancements for accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities. First, it brings an accessibility helper to (). The goal is to help people produce content that is more accessible.
The wizard will offer suggestions on how to prevent and fix accessibility issues, along with what Microsoft calls “best defaults” and “real-time remediation.” The wizard follows an accessibility checker in Visual Studio. On a similar note, Microsoft has published a guide () to help people design products with cognitive diversity in mind.
Later this year, there will be 3D-printed accessories for the Surface Pen: those are for the Business Pen and the Classroom Pen 2. According to Microsoft, the grips can make the pens easier to hold for those with limited mobility so they can use the peripherals on your Surface devices.
Elsewhere, Microsoft detailed more accessibility-focused updates being built on the Azure platform. The Seeing AI app recently to help blind users and those with low vision navigate their way through a building with the guidance of spatial audio cues.
Azure Cognitive Services for Vision will be used to automatically add alt text descriptions and captions as well. Microsoft notes that more than 40 percent of LinkedIn posts have at least one image. While auto-generated descriptions won’t be perfect, they are better than having no alt text at all.
On top of all that, Microsoft Translator today gained support for an additional 13 African languages, including Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo. Additionally, Microsoft says it will dig into some of the ways they can strengthen accessibility during the summit.
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