I thought I would write a quick blog around the Accessibility Fundamentals Learning Path I have recently completed on the Microsoft Learn Website. The main reason being to do my bit to raise awareness with all my connected friends, family, colleagues and associates with the importance of creating Accessible Technology.

Microsoft have invested heavily in ensuring Accessible technology design is core to all its product sets and have set up this Learning Path to highlight some of the key areas Microsoft Software can help people with varying impairments as much as possible in order that they are not disabled by their environments with inclusivity being key to any application/software design and use.

The learning path is split into 4 Modules with an estimated time of 2.5 hours to complete and can be accessed by following this link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/paths/accessibility-fundamentals/

The modules are comprised as follows:

• Introduction to Disability and Accessibility
• Microsoft Accessibility Features and Tools
• Creating Accessible Content with Microsoft 365
• Digital Accessibility

I believe that this Learning Path helps people in a variety of ways. It will help my developer and software connections understand ways in which to build Accessible software. It will help people who may not have any impairments understand how to ensure they are acting/speaking/behaving in an inclusive. These modules will also show how to use some of the inbuild Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Office Accessibility tool sets can be enabled and used.

In particular I was impressed with the Digital Accessibility Tips and the Summary resources listed.

Introduction to Web Accessibility

How people with disabilities use the web

Designing inclusive software for Windows 10

Microsoft Inclusive Design

Accessibility Insights

For further reading I would recommend the Microsoft Accessibility Guides and Resources website.