A well designed spreadsheet is not just of benefit to users of access software, it will also help to ensure that that the information is understood by as wide an audience as possible.
Font style
The font you choose for your spreadsheet can go a long way towards improving accessibility. As a general rule font styles which are clear and in common use are often the most widely accessible. For this reason decorative or ornate styles are best avoided. Similarly, italic and light weight font styles can also cause accessibility problems. RNIB Clear Print guidelines recommend that a typical font such as Arial be used no smaller than 12pt and preferably in 14pt size.
How best to use colour
The use of colour to convey or indicate important information can cause problems for blind and partially sighted users. Ideally, colour selection should be left set to automatic which will ensure most spreadsheet software will maintain a good contrast between the foreground and background.
However, where colour needs to be used you can help to ensure that the meaning can be understood by all users:
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Try to provide an additional cue for the colour. For example, important text highlighted in colour could be preceded by an asterisk which would be read out by a screen reader.
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Spreadsheets can be designed so that data can be filtered by screen reader users using the same criterion that determines the colour. However, please note that conditional formatting where a cell changes colour according to a preset condition is not currently accessible by screen reader software.
What about symbols and special characters?
Symbols which can be typed from the keyboard can normally be recognised by screen reader software. Unfortunately, there are lots of symbols such as Wingdings, Webdings and Mapdings which are not usually accessible.
There is a simple check you can make to ensure that any symbols you are using are accessible. You can copy and paste any non standard characters into a basic text editor, such as Notepad in Windows. If the symbols appear as small squares or meaningless characters then they are unlikely to be accessible by screen reader software.
Summary pointers towards good design
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Use of regular type weight for normal body text.
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Body text set in a familiar font avoiding small type sizes (e.g. less than 12pt Arial).
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An alternative provided where important information is conveyed by the use of colour.
Further information on accessible spreadsheets can be found on the Structure, Worksheets and Charts and graphs pages.