Technology Instruction: Accessibility Settings

Windows accessibility post

Global Accessibility Awareness Day

The Accessibility menu will always be in the sidebar of the Settings page. The blue stick figure is a widely-used symbol for accessibility settings, so you may also see buttons on websites that look similar. If you do, try clicking on it and see how it can make the website easier to use!

Voice access and voice typing are two similar sounding, but different functions. Voice access allows you to control your PC with your voice, essentially replacing a mouse. You can instruct the computer to click on things, open programs, and more. Voice typing is used only to control the keyboard when you want to dictate into the computer.

Accessibility means that people with disabilities are afforded the opportunity to participate in all aspects of life with the same ease of use and integrated manner as people without disabilities. While the ways of accessing information or interacting with the environment may look different for those with disabilities, everyone who wants to access a service, visit a location, use a virtual resource, and obtain information must be able to get the same end result. Basically, accessibility is changing up the path based on people's needs to make sure everyone gets the same outcome.

The World Wide Web Consortium (the main international organization that sets standards for the World Wide Web) says that digital accessibility means designing websites, tools, and technology so that people with disabilities can use them. This doesn't mean that people without disabilities can't use them, it just means taking the steps to make sure those with disabilities can also meaningfully interact with digital resources. 

The Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium created the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are four principles to follow when making digital materials fit accessibility standards. The standards follow the acronym POUR

• Perceivable: People can perceive of content through at least one of their senses. Example: People who are Blind can use web content by having a screen reader read it to them.
• Operable: People can use interactive elements, no matter how they are interacting with the content. Example: People who can't use their hands should be able to click buttons using dictation software.
• Understandable: People should be able to understand what the content means and how to use it. It should be predictable and consistent. Example: People using any device or assistive technology should be able to identify links and understand what happens when they click them.
• Robust: When websites are designed according the best practices, people should be able to use them on any device or with any type of assistive technology.

What Is Digital Accessibility? | Digital Accessibility. https://dap.berkeley.edu/web-a11y-basics/what-digital-accessibility. Accessed 5 May 2025.

• Text size
  • Change how big or small the text is across your device
• Visual effects
  • Toggle always-on scrollbars, animation effects, and notification visual alerts
• Mouse pointer and touch
  • Change the color and size of your mouse pointer
• Text cursor
  • Change the color, height, and thickness of the text cursor across your device
• Magnifier
  • Enable the magnifier to selectively zoom into parts of your screen
• Color filters
  • Apply filters to change the appearance of the on-screen colors based on different types of color blindness
• Contrast themes
  • Apply filters to create more contrast between on-screen elements
• Narrator
  • Toggle the Narrator to read on-screen text, change the voices and sensitivity of the Narrator

• Audio
  • Switch between mono and stereo sound
• Hearing devices
  • Hearing aids enabled with Bluetooth LE Audio can be connected to certain computers
• Captions
  • See live captions on your screen for videos and video conferences

• Speech
  • Enable Voice access and Voice typing (see sidebar for more details)
• Keyboard
  • Enable Sticky, Filter, and Toggle keys, toggle the on-screen keyboard
• Mouse
  • Toggle mouse keys
• Eye control
  • Applicable devices can be connected to your computer allowing you to control the screen with your eyes

The classroom computers all have the Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox browsers enabled

Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant. It is a large language model (LLM), meaning that it is a computer program that was trained on huge amounts of data, and uses that data to generate conversational responses to your questions. Microsoft features Copilot in much of their messaging about accessibility. You can view the video in the box below to see some of the ways it can be used to make the digital world easier for people with disabilities. (Note that the video features 365 Copilot, not Copilot Chat)

There are two different versions of Copilot. Copilot Chat is the free version, which comes pre-installed on new Windows 11 machines. It may be on your computer already- look at the task bar for the Copilot icon or search for it in the task bar's search bar. If you don't have the app and want to try it out, there is also a browser version (linked below). 

Copilot logo

365 Copilot integrates into the Microsoft 365 suite. It is a separate subscription, so you will need to pay for both the regular 365 subscription and the Copilot subscription to use them together. 365 Copilot works across the Microsoft apps to automate tasks and generate drafts.