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Re: Forms in WORD format

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From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Jan 11, 2010 9:15AM

MS Word forms can be made fully accessible and we have developed a set of standard practices at our agency to support the creation and management of accessible MS Word forms. Some of what we do would probably be considered pretty non-standard but the results have been successful in creating forms that can be used by staff who work with the JAWS screen reader, the ZoomText screen magnifier, Dragon Naturally Speaking speech to text software, or who just do not use a mouse. We have about 150 staff who fall into one of those categories.

These are the basics.

The forms are locked so that the user can only access the inputs on the forms.

We use legacy text input fields for all inputs, including "faux check boxes." Faux check boxes look like a check box, a small square box with black borders but the user has to type an "X" into the field. This was actually done to support our ZoomText users because ZoomText would not track the legacy check boxes correctly.

Form field prompts are conveyed through status bar and F1 help fields in the input field. The status bar holds 128 characters and the F1 help text holds 256 characters.

We place the instructions and other form information in hidden inputs, (1 px on character) inputs with the information placed in the status bar and F1 help fields. We preface this information in the status bar with the word "info" so that users know that this is not a field that is editable. We considered and rejected two alternatives to this method. The first was to use unlocked sections of the form. This would probably work but users could not navigate through the form with just the tab key, which was a requirement requested by our assistive technology users. The second was to make the "info" fields read only, unfortunately this also resulted in removing the fields from the tab ring.

We place the section headings for the form inside of large black borders to make it easy to identify section breaks when using a screen magnifier.

We place a 20pt "X" at start of signature lines to make it easier for people with low vision to identify where they need to sign.

If you would like an example of one of our forms contact me off list and I will email one to you.

Mike Moore
<EMAIL REMOVED>