As you design in Power BI, consider that the person viewing the report may have a disability. By implementing these accessibility best practices for Power BI, you'll be on your way toward creating reports that are easy to use and understand by everyone including individuals with a disability.

Text Color Contrast

Text must have a sufficient contrast with the background on which it is placed.

  • Text color contrast needs to be at least 4.5:1.
    • To set the color of titles, navigate to Visualizations > Matrix > Format > Title. The font color for the title can be changed here, as well as the text size and font family.
    • To set the color of graph lines, navigate to Visualizations > Line chart > Format > Data Colors. These can all be customized in Power BI Desktop.
  • Check color contrast with WebAIM’s color contrast checker.

Use of Color

Don't rely solely on color to convey meaning.

  • Use text, shapes, textures, and/or contrast to provide an alternative to users who cannot distinguish color (blind or color blind users).
    • If viewed in grayscale, would you be able to understand the report?
    • For best visual clarity, a good best practice is to aim for 3:1 contrast between graphic elements.
  • For line graphs, different marker shapes should also be used for each line. Select Show Markers.

Keyboard Navigation

If your Power BI report has interactive content, a keyboard user needs to be able to interact with the content.

  • The TAB order and focus order must be "logical". In other words, in an order that matches the way visual users process the data.
    • To set the tab order, open the selection pane (under View) and select TAB Order.
      • Drag and drop the fields to edit the TAB order. Set the Title first on each slicer in order to know which slicer you are ordering – turn off the Slicer Header and use the Title instead.
  • What needs to be in the TAB order? Anything that is interactive.
    • If something is not in the TAB order / focus order, there must be an alternative way to perform a similar action using a keyboard.

Labeling

  • Use simple language.
  • Use meaningful titles, captions, and contextual text.
  • Use descriptive text on legends and filters.
  • Avoid ambiguous link phrasing. Instead of "more", "more info", use text that describes where the link navigates the user. Example: "1999 Statistics".
  • The Title of the data table or line chart can be dynamically updated as slicers are selected.

Alt Text

  • In image alt text, avoid using "image of", "graphic of" to reduce verbosity for screen reader users.

Embedding into Digital Commons

  • When embedding Power BI into a Digital Commons web page:
    • Use a mobile responsive iframe component to ensure that mobile users and users who need to zoom in can use the content.
    • In the iframe html code, provide a title attribute to communicate the purpose of the iframe to screen reader users.

Microsoft References

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