How to Make Your SharePoint Intranet Accessible: A Practical Guide and Checklist

Is your SharePoint intranet usable for everyone?
For a growing number of employees, the honest answer is NO. Low-contrast text, unlabelled buttons, keyboard traps, inaccessible PDFs, and videos without captions quietly lock out colleagues with visual, motor, auditory, or cognitive disabilities. Most organizations don’t realize there’s a problem until an employee struggle in silence, raises a support ticket, or files an accessibility complaint.
Picture a new employee trying to complete mandatory onboarding using only a keyboard. They tab through the page, reach a button that never receives keyboard focus, and can’t continue. What should have taken five minutes now requires emailing HR for help. Multiply that across dozens of employees, and accessibility becomes a productivity problem, not just a compliance issue.
Accessibility isn’t a compliance checkbox you add before launch. It’s an ongoing design discipline that also makes your SharePoint intranet faster, clearer, easier to search, and simpler for everyone to use.

What is SharePoint intranet accessibility?

SharePoint intranet accessibility is the practice of designing, building, and maintaining SharePoint sites so employees with disabilities, including visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments, can perceive, navigate, and interact with all content using assistive technologies such as screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, voice control, and screen magnification. Most organizations aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the accessibility standard referenced by major regulations including the ADA in the United States and the European Accessibility Act (EAA).

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Why does accessibility matters beyond compliance?

Many organizations treat accessibility as a legal requirement.
The organizations with the best employee experience treat it as a usability improvement.
An accessible SharePoint intranet can:
• Reduce HR and IT support requests
• Improve employee productivity
• Speed up onboarding
• Improve SharePoint search results through better content structure
• Help employees working on mobile devices
• Benefit non-native English speakers through captions and plain language
• Improve usability for every employee, not just those using assistive technology
Accessibility doesn’t necessarily mean designing for a small percentage of employees. It’s about removing unnecessary friction for everyone.

Why do most SharePoint intranets fail accessibility?

Microsoft has done a solid job making modern SharePoint pages accessible out of the box.
The problems usually begin after launch.
Content owners:
• upload scanned PDFs instead of searchable documents
• forget to add alt text
• create pages with multiple H1 headings
• embed videos without captions
• use vague links like “Click Here”
• choose low-contrast brand colors
• install third-party web parts that aren’t keyboard accessible
Accessibility slowly erodes one page, one document, and one news article at a time.

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Common SharePoint accessibility mistakes

These issues appear in accessibility audits again and again.

Understanding the four WCAG accessibility principles (POUR)

Every accessibility recommendation ultimately supports one of these four principles.

‍Perceivable

‍Employees must be able to perceive information regardless of sensory ability.
Examples include:
• image alt text
• captions
• transcripts
• sufficient color contrast

Operable

‍Every function should work without a mouse.
Employees should be able to navigate every page using only:
• Tab
• Shift + Tab
• Enter
• Space

Understandable

Navigation should be predictable.
Content should use:
• plain language
• descriptive headings
• consistent navigation
• meaningful links

Robust

Content should work across:
• NVDA
• JAWS
• VoiceOver
• Narrator
• future browsers and assistive technologies

SharePoint features that improve accessibility

Many organizations overlook built-in Microsoft accessibility features.
Some of the most useful include:
• Accessibility Checker for Microsoft 365 documents
• Immersive Reader
• Live captions in Microsoft Stream
• Accessibility Insights for testing
• Microsoft Editor for plain language suggestions
• Keyboard shortcuts throughout Microsoft 365
Using these tools catches many accessibility problems before content is published.

Don’t forget document accessibility

One of the biggest accessibility blind spots isn’t SharePoint pages.
It’s documents.
Employees spend much of their day opening:
• Word files
• Excel spreadsheets
• PowerPoint presentations
• PDFs
If those documents aren’t accessible, the intranet isn’t accessible.

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Common document problems include:
• scanned PDFs
• missing heading styles
• tables without headers
• images without alt text
• poor reading order
Treat every uploaded document like another web page.

SharePoint Accessibility Checklist

Visual

• Text meets 4.5:1 contrast ratio
• Font sizes remain readable when zoomed
• Information isn’t communicated through color alone

Images

• Every meaningful image has alt text
• Decorative images use empty alt text
• Charts include text summaries

Video

• Closed captions
• Transcript
• No autoplay with sound

Navigation

• Keyboard accessibl
• Logical heading order
• Descriptive links
• Skip-to-content available
• Visible keyboard focus

Documents

• Tagged PDFs
• Accessible Word documents
• Accessible PowerPoint
• Accessible Excel tables

Governance

• Accessibility owner assigned
• Quarterly review
• Accessibility included in publishing workflow
• Screen reader testing completed

How to test SharePoint accessibility

Automated tools are useful, but they don’t find everything.
A simple manual test takes less than five minutes.
Try this:

1. Put your mouse aside.
2. Press Tab repeatedly.
3. Can you reach every link?
4. Can you always tell where keyboard focus is?
5. Can every button be activated?
6. Can you return to the top using Skip to Content?
      

Then repeat the test using a free screen reader like NVDA.
You’ll quickly discover issues that automated tools miss.

Five accessibility improvements you can make today

If you’re short on time, start here.

1. Add alt text to homepage images.
2. Replace every “Click Here” link.
3. Caption your latest training video.
4. Replace scanned PDFs.
5. Test your homepage without touching your mouse.

These five changes alone dramatically improve usability.

Accessibility governance: make it part of publishing

Accessibility shouldn’t depend on one SharePoint administrator.
Before publishing any page, ask:
• Does every image have alt text?
• Are headings logical?
• Are links descriptive?
• Are captions available?
• Has someone tested keyboard navigation?
Adding these checks to your publishing workflow prevents accessibility debt from building over time.

Common accessibility myths

“None of our employees use screen readers.”
You probably don’t know who does.
Many disabilities are invisible, and many employees won’t disclose them.

“Accessibility only helps disabled employees.”
Captions help people watching videos in open offices.
Keyboard navigation helps power users.
Plain language helps everyone.

“We’ll fix accessibility later.”
Accessibility is much cheaper to build into everyday publishing than to redesign hundreds of pages later.

Conclusion 

The best SharePoint intranets don't advertise that they're accessible.

Employees simply find what they need, complete tasks without barriers,and move on with their day. That’s the real goal.

Accessibility is all about creating an intranet that works for every employee, every day.

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