[Athen] Fillable forms in Word

[dandrews920 at comcast.net]

In the past, Word forms have been a disaster, from an accessibility point of
view. PDF forms are possible, but a lot of work to do.

 

The best options might be on-line forms programs from Microsoft, Google etc.

 

Dave

 

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf
Of Deborah Armstrong
Sent: Friday, June 2, 2023 11:28 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network'
<athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Fillable forms in Word

 

I've been experimenting with the latest Office 365 Word (desktop client) to
make fillable forms using controls on the developer tab.

It's super easy to do, and as a screen reader user, fully accessible for me
to create these forms.

But I've had a few disappointments.

If I save a form as a PDF, it's not fillable. I was hoping to find a way as
a screen reader user to make a fillable PDF. We've got all these
inaccessible forms on campus, and I want to be part of the solution - not
just someone complaining about them!

I've also found it can be a little challenging to fill out a Word form
without accidentally entering content. You have to carefully tab to the
control and activate it with enter. If you press enter in the wrong place,
you create an empty paragraph. So though accessible, it's a little confusing
for a keyboard user. 

Another problem with Word forms is that designers often include the fields
within tables. Tab is used to both navigate between cells and to navigate to
fields, so again, that adds a lot of confusion. 

I also find that if you don't need a legal signature, and you just need a
form filled out, it's a very accessible process to use the online Office app
to create and/or fill out accessible forms. What I particularly like about
Office 365 forms is that people who know nothing about accessibility seem to
create accessible forms by default. 

The online version of Word doesn't have a developer tab; you have to use
Office 365 forms if you want to create a form that is fillable online and
whose results can be reported back to you.

Google forms are also easy to create and fill using a screen reader. And
ditto for SurveyMonkey. 

With all these accessible options, I do wish people would stop using PDFS,
but we use Adobe sign and people love it!

--Debee

 

 

 

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