Hi, Insiders! I’m Shireen Salma, and I’m a Product Manager on the Office Accessibility team. I’m thrilled to share that we’re continuing to evolve Accessibility Assistant across Microsoft 365, making it more reliable, less disruptive, and better aligned with how people experience content, especially those using screen readers.
Accessibility Assistant updates: Smarter handling of tables and shapes
Over the past few months, we’ve worked directly with screen reader users to observe how they interact with tables and document layouts across Microsoft 365. This feedback has helped us make meaningful improvements to our accessibility rules engine!
Recent changes reduce false positives, better reflect real accessibility needs, and help content authors prioritize addressing truly impactful issues. We’ve introduced the following key improvements:
- Recognizing valid row headers: Typically, you can navigate tables via a screen reader using shortcut keys that let you hear header information as you move through rows and columns. For example, keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl + Alt + ↓ / ↑ / → / ← would navigate through the cells and read the row and column header information by default. Previously, Accessibility Assistant flagged tables with valid row headers, even though screen readers worked perfectly on them. To better align with the actual experience with screen readers, we’re updating Accessibility Assistant to recognize valid row headers as sufficient when they’re used appropriately in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.Accessibility Assistant will no longer flag valid row and column headers as violations.
- Smarter handling of merged cells: In many real-world tables, headers often span multiple columns or rows – for example, a year label covering four quarters or a category grouping related data. Screen readers handle these merged headers well when they appear in the first row or first column, correctly associating them with their data, but Accessibility Assistant would flag all merged cells as violations, even when they didn’t affect usability. We’ve refined this logic so merged cells in the first row or column are now recognized as valid and will no longer trigger accessibility alerts in Word and PowerPoint (It is not possible to merge cells in a table in Excel).Accessibility Assistant will no longer flag headers in merged cells as violations.
- Ignoring small tables for merge/split violations: Screen readers generally handle small tables under four rows or columns without issue, even if there are merged or split cells. These layouts are easy to follow and rarely cause confusion. Previously, Accessibility Assistant flagged all such tables, creating unnecessary noise, especially for simple summaries or label tables. We’ve updated the logic to ignore merge/split warnings in small tables in Word and PowerPoint (it is not possible to merge cells in a table in Excel), so creators can focus on genuine accessibility issues, not just layout choices.Accessibility Assistant will no longer flag merge/split violations in small tables.
- No longer flagging empty shapes or text boxes: When navigating documents via a screen reader, you don’t typically interact with purely decorative or empty elements, like an empty text box used for spacing or a shape used for visual grouping. These are typically skipped, and their presence doesn’t affect navigation or comprehension. Accessibility Assistant used to flag any empty shape or text box as a violation, even if it served a harmless design purpose. This often led to frustration for document authors, who were forced to address alerts that didn’t impact accessibility. We’ve now stopped flagging empty shapes and text boxes in Word and Excel. If they don’t contain content or aren’t meant to convey information, they’re no longer treated as accessibility issues.
These updates are part of our ongoing commitment to make accessibility tools not just powerful, but intuitive and reliable. We’ll continue listening to feedback and refining our rules to ensure that every alert helps move content creators closer to truly inclusive documents!
Availability
Changes to table violations are available to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint users running:
- Windows: Version 2411 (Build 19412.20000) or later.
- Mac: Version 16.103 (Build 25101121) or later.
The change to handling empty shapes is available to Word and Excel users running:
- Windows: Version 2411 (Build 19329.20000) or later.
- Mac: Version 16.103 (Build 25100813) or later.
Feedback
We’d love to hear your thoughts on how these updates are working! Open Accessibility Assistant, then select Give Feedback to provide feedback.
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