With a series of new announcements, Microsoft is continuing to distinguish itself through inclusivitySpellcheck is one of the greatest technologies of the Microsoft Word era, an automated way for us to look less ideodic, er, idiotic. If you want a single indicator of how much design has changed since spellcheck was introduced at Microsoft, take a look at a feature that now sits right next to spellcheck in Office apps.
It’s called Accessibility Checker. It spots problems with a PowerPoint or an email, like missing annotations for the hard of hearing or low-contrast writing for those with vision impairment. It questions a core assumption in design–that you should build something for the platonic ideal of a user–and broadens it to consider users in the world at large.
