# Decide your accessibility standard and defaults - URL: https://m365playbooks.com/playbooks/decide-your-accessibility-standard-and-defaults/ - Topic: Accessibility in Microsoft 365 (Program) - Product: Microsoft 365 apps, Teams, SharePoint - Stage: Plan - Last reviewed: October 15, 2026 - Version: 1 - Written by: Sev Derghazarian ## 1. Purpose Make sure everyone, including colleagues and customers with disabilities, can use what the organization creates and shares in Microsoft 365. Most barriers aren't technical failures: they are documents without headings, images without descriptions, meetings without captions. Deciding the standard, the owner and the defaults up front turns accessibility from a request someone has to make into the way content is produced. ## 2. Overview The standard you commit to, who owns it, the defaults Microsoft 365 applies for everyone, and how people report barriers. - Effort: About 8 to 12 person-days - Duration: 4 to 6 weeks - Complexity: Medium - Who's in the room: Accessibility lead (owner), Microsoft 365 Apps admin, Teams admin, privacy officer, communications lead, employees who use assistive technology - Beyond E5: Nothing beyond Microsoft 365 E5 - Risk of not doing it: Without an agreed standard and defaults, accessibility depends on each author's knowledge, barriers are found by the people they exclude, and obligations go unmet without anyone noticing. ## 3. Key activities ### Prerequisites 1. **Gather your obligations and commitments** List the accessibility legislation, policy and contract terms that apply to you, and the technical standard each points to. Note whether they cover only websites or also documents, meetings and software. Add internal commitments, such as an accessibility plan or a public pledge. Who: Accessibility lead. Produces: A one-page list of obligations and the standards they reference. 2. **Find where content is created** Map where people create and share content: Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, email, Teams meetings and recordings, SharePoint pages, forms and video. Most barriers start in everyday documents and meetings, not on the intranet, so this map decides where the defaults matter most. Who: Accessibility lead with the Microsoft 365 Apps admin. Produces: A map of content sources and their volume. ### Decisions 3. **Decision: Which standard do you commit to?** A web-only standard leaves out documents, meetings and the tools people use to create them. Microsoft's own Accessibility Conformance Reports describe its products against Section 508, WCAG and EN 301 549, which covers documents and software as well as the web. Pick one standard and version, say what it applies to, and use it in templates, training and contracts. Options: No formal standard; A web standard for public websites only; A standard covering web, documents and software, applied to all published content. Recommended default: A standard covering web, documents and software, applied to all published content. Who: Accessibility lead. Produces: A named standard, version and scope. 4. **Decision: Who owns accessibility?** Accessibility spans IT settings, templates, training, procurement and how barriers are handled. Name one owner who decides, with IT, communications, HR and procurement as contributors, and include people who use assistive technology in decisions that affect them. Options: IT owns it; A named accessibility lead, with IT, communications, HR and procurement contributing. Recommended default: A named accessibility lead, with IT, communications, HR and procurement contributing. Who: Executive sponsor. Produces: A named owner and contributors. 5. **Decision: Should the Accessibility Checker run by default?** Admins can make the Accessibility Checker run automatically in Word, Excel and PowerPoint on Windows through Group Policy or Cloud Policy, and Cloud Policy has an accessibility baseline for this. Once set, people can't turn the checker off, and issues can be made more prominent. There is no policy that requires a check before saving or sending, so the checker informs rather than blocks. Options: Leave it to each person; Run the checker by default and make issues more visible. Recommended default: Run the checker by default and make issues more visible. Who: Accessibility lead with the Microsoft 365 Apps admin. Produces: A decision on checker policies. 6. **Decision: How do privacy and accessibility settings fit together?** Automatic alt text is one of Office's connected experiences that analyze content. If you turn that category off for privacy reasons, you also lose automatic alt text and Read Aloud. Decide this with the privacy officer rather than letting one setting quietly undo the other. If you keep it, a policy can make automatic alt text always on; people should still review what it writes. Options: Turn off connected experiences that analyze content; Keep them, turn on automatic alt text, and train people to review it. Recommended default: Keep them, turn on automatic alt text, and train people to review it. Who: Accessibility lead with the privacy officer. Produces: A recorded decision on connected experiences and automatic alt text. 7. **Decision: Captions and transcripts by default?** Teams meeting policies decide whether live captions are available and whether meetings can be transcribed. Live captions aren't saved; transcripts are, so they become records your retention policies must cover. Make captions available to everyone, and allow transcription with retention decided in the Retention policies topic. Options: Captions and transcription off; Captions available to everyone; transcription allowed, with retention set. Recommended default: Captions available to everyone; transcription allowed, with retention set. Who: Accessibility lead with the Teams admin. Produces: Caption and transcription defaults. 8. **Decision: How do people report barriers?** People who meet a barrier need a clear place to say so and to get a response. A general service desk queue tends to lose these. Publish one accessibility feedback channel with an owner and a response target, and use what it receives to improve templates, training and settings. Options: The general service desk; A published accessibility feedback channel with an owner. Recommended default: A published accessibility feedback channel with an owner. Who: Accessibility lead. Produces: A published feedback channel. 9. **Decision: What do you require of vendors?** Third-party apps that sit alongside Microsoft 365 can undo your work. Microsoft publishes conformance reports for its own products, which shows the kind of evidence to ask for: a conformance report against your chosen standard, and a plan with dates for known gaps. Options: No accessibility requirement; A conformance report against your standard, and dated plans for gaps. Recommended default: A conformance report against your standard, and dated plans for gaps. Who: Accessibility lead with procurement. Produces: A procurement requirement. ### Pilot configuration 10. **Test the defaults with people who use assistive technology** Before anything is rolled out, ask employees who use screen readers, captions, magnification or keyboard-only navigation to try the proposed templates and meeting settings. What they find shapes the defaults and the training. Who: Accessibility lead. Produces: Feedback from assistive technology users and changes made. ### Production configuration 11. **Approve the standard and defaults** Record the standard, scope, owner, checker and alt text settings, caption and transcription defaults, the feedback channel and the procurement requirement on one page. Have the sponsor approve it and hand it to Deploy. Who: Accessibility lead. Produces: An approved one-page accessibility standard. 12. **Make it enforceable** Once deployed, Cloud Policy keeps the checker running and automatic alt text on, and Teams policies set caption defaults. Nothing can require a check before sending, so templates, training and sampling remain the main controls. _Partly enforced. The gaps are a risk until a mechanism covers them._ ## 4. Approval and readiness 1. **Draft the standard and defaults** One page built from the decisions above. Move on when: Every decision has an owner and a reason. 2. **Review with assistive technology users** (Change: Explain) Share the draft and the test results. Move on when: Their feedback is reflected or answered. 3. **Review with privacy and legal** Connected experiences, transcripts and obligations. Move on when: No open objections. 4. **Approve with the sponsor** (Change: Inform) Fifteen minutes on the standard, defaults and cost of not doing it. Move on when: The standard is approved for Deploy. ## 5. Common challenges - **If you** Treat accessibility as an IT setting. What tends to happen: The checker is on, but documents, meetings and pages still exclude people.. A better approach: Pair the defaults with templates, training and an owner. - **If you** Rely on the Accessibility Checker alone. What tends to happen: Issues it doesn't detect, such as poor reading order or unhelpful automatic alt text, reach readers.. A better approach: Add a short manual checklist and review automatic alt text. - **If you** Turn off connected experiences for privacy without checking the impact. What tends to happen: Automatic alt text and Read Aloud disappear for everyone.. A better approach: Decide connected experiences with the privacy officer and the accessibility lead together. - **If you** Leave procurement out. What tends to happen: A new tool brings back barriers the rest of Microsoft 365 removed.. A better approach: Require a conformance report against your standard for new tools. ## 6. Checkpoints **Pilot:** - [ ] Have people who use assistive technology tried the proposed defaults? - [ ] Are privacy and accessibility settings decided together? **Production:** - [ ] Is the standard approved, with scope and owner? - [ ] Is the feedback channel published? - [ ] Is the procurement requirement in place? ## 7. Success measures Capture a baseline before you start, or you won't be able to show the change. - Decisions informed by assistive technology users (Where you see it: Review log; Good direction: Up) - New contracts with an accessibility requirement (Where you see it: Procurement records; Good direction: Up) - Open barrier reports (Where you see it: Accessibility feedback channel; Good direction: Down) **Ready-to-use text: One-page accessibility standard** > Standard and version | What it applies to (web, documents, meetings, video, software) | Owner and contributors | Checker and alt text settings | Caption and transcription defaults | Feedback channel and response target | Procurement requirement | Review date **Ready-to-use text: Procurement clause** > The supplier will provide a current accessibility conformance report for the product against [standard and version], and a dated plan to address any criteria not met. Material accessibility defects found during the contract will be fixed within [period]. ## 8. Additional reading **Plan:** - [Accessibility guide for Microsoft 365 Apps](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/deploy/accessibility-guide) - [Accessibility Conformance Reports](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/conformance-reports) - [Accessibility - Microsoft Adoption](https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/) **Configure:** - [Overview of Cloud Policy service for Microsoft 365](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/admin-center/overview-cloud-policy) - [Connected experiences in Office](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/privacy/connected-experiences) - [Manage transcription and captions for Teams meetings](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/meeting-transcription-captions) ## Changelog - Version 1, 2026-10-15, Sev Derghazarian: First version. Facts checked against Microsoft Learn on 2026-10-15.