On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we reflect on how our products are evolving based on feedback and insights from the disability community and want to highlight some of the progress from the last year.
Nothing about us, without us
The Windows Accessibility team adheres to the disability community’s guiding principle, “nothing about us without us.” In the spirit of putting people at the center of the design process guided by Microsoft Inclusive Design, working with and getting insights from our advisory boards for the blind, mobility and hard of hearing communities is critical to creating meaningful and effective features that empower every single user.
Fluid Dictation on Windows enables you to dictate with ease
Fluid Dictation, a feature designed to make voice-based text authoring seamless and intuitive for everyone, intelligently corrects grammar, punctuation and spelling in real time as you speak. This means your spoken words are instantly transformed into polished, accurate text, reducing the need for tedious manual corrections or complex voice commands.
In addition, Fluid Dictation can leverage your custom vocabulary defined within Voice Access, so specialized terms and names are recognized correctly. Powered by on-device AI on Copilot+ PCs without the need to connect to the internet, this capability can be leveraged across both first- and third-party apps on Windows—whether you’re drafting emails, taking notes or collaborating in your favorite applications.
With Fluid Dictation, we want you to focus on your ideas, and not the mechanics of text entry by minimizing errors and streamlining corrections when typing with your voice. To try it out, enable Fluid Dictation in the manage options menu under Voice Access settings and interact with any text editing surface of your choice. Here’s a guide to help you get started. This feature is also available for Windows Insiders for Voice Typing. Simply press Windows + H and get started.
Voice Access: Understanding everyone better
Voice input is a spectrum; not everyone’s way of communicating using their voice is the same. We’re evolving the way Voice Access understands you to make your experience seamless.
- Wait time before acting: Everyone speaks at their own pace and with the wait time before acting setting, people can configure a delay before a command is executed. This provides greater flexibility for individuals with varying speech patterns, enabling more accurate recognition whether speaking slowly or quickly. To set this up, navigate to Voice Access settings > Wait time before acting, and choose the option that best fits your preferences.
- Custom word dictionary: We have introduced the ability for you to add your own words to the dictionary in Voice Access. Adding your own words, including difficult to pronounce words, to the dictionary in Voice Access will help improve dictation accuracy. It increases the probability of recognizing these words more accurately. The feature will be available in all the currently supported Voice Access languages. Manually add a word anywhere in your workflow by using the “Add to Vocabulary” command or directly from Voice Access settings > Add to vocabulary.
- Flexible and natural commanding: We released more flexible and natural command execution in Voice Access on Copilot+ PCs. Voice access now understands multiple variations of an existing command. You can say:
- “Can you open Edge application”
- “Switch to Microsoft Edge”
- “Please open the Edge browser”
And Voice Access will recognize your intent and execute the command accordingly.
- Improved speech pattern recognition: Voice Access now offers enhanced recognition for speech patterns, especially those associated with Parkinson’s, reducing errors and making dictation and navigation smoother.
- Chinese and Japanese Support: Voice Access now supports Chinese and Japanese, expanding accessibility for more users. You can now navigate, dictate and interact with Windows using voice commands in Chinese and Japanese.
More natural and expressive voices for Narrator and Magnifier
Narrator and Magnifier, in collaboration with Azure AI, now provide the option to use new state of the art, delightful human sounding voices. These voice options are designed to sound more human-like to help reduce cognitive load by mimicking the subtleties of human conversation through natural pauses, emphasis and emotional tone.
To try out these natural voices, navigate to voice options in Narrator or Magnifier settings, select the HD voice option, download the voice model and you’re all set for more engaging screen reading and read-aloud experience.
Efficient document creation with Narrator and Word
We’re excited to share that creating and reading documents in Microsoft Word is now smoother and more intuitive for people using Narrator. Recent updates address your valuable feedback and enhance the overall experience across drafting and reviewing text to navigating lists, tables and comments so you stay focused on your work without interruptions.
You’ll now find it easier to read and write with confidence. Narrator provides more natural, streamlined announcements when reading tabular data, footnotes and formatting changes. Engaging with comments is now easier and requires fewer keystrokes. You can efficiently read comment text and its associated content without losing your place in the document.
Proofing has also become more seamless. Spelling and grammar feedback is now announced in a clearer, more concise way, with automatic speech-rate adjustments and improved keyboard shortcuts that make correcting errors faster and less disruptive.
Finally, we’ve made meaningful improvements to Copilot usability with Narrator, ensuring a more accessible experience when working alongside AI.
Focus on fundamentals, powered by your feedback
Ensuring consistency and reliability across assistive technologies on Windows is the foundation of our experiences. We prioritize addressing critical and functional issues shared through your feedback and our engagements with our advisory boards. Through these efforts, we ensure that you can continue to focus on what’s important to you without distractions.
On Narrator, your feedback has helped shaped improvements such as:
- Screen Curtain: When activated completely blacks out your display to enhance privacy and focus, ensuring only the user hears what’s on the screen through Narrator. Press Caps + Ctrl + C when Narrator is running to enable Screen Curtain.
- Richer image descriptions: On Copilot+ PCs, Narrator leverages AI to provide rich detailed descriptions of images, charts and graphs. Press Narrator key + Ctrl + D to get a contextual description of the image, detailing people, objects, colors, text and numbers from the image.
- Speech Recap and live transcription: Need to save, share or review what Narrator said last? You can press Narrator key + Alt + X to open Speech Recap and view the last 500 spoken strings. If you’re an Assistive Technology (AT) trainer, Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments (TSVI) who supports students in class or for professionals who are hard of hearing and want to use Narrator, you can quickly access spoken content, follow along with live transcription and copy what Narrator last said—all with simple keyboard shortcuts.
Join us on the journey
Thank you to all our Windows customers for trying out these new features, providing your feedback and helping us create better experiences for all, especially those who try out our Windows Insider builds to give feedback earlier in the release process. Consistency and reliability across assistive technologies on Windows is the foundation of the experience. We will continue to prioritize critical and functional issues shared through your feedback and our engagements with our advisory boards.
There is still a lot more to come, so join us on this journey by trying Windows 11 and continuing to share your valuable feedback. Just press the Windows logo key + F to launch the Feedback hub to share what you like, dislike or just wish the product could do!
If you are a customer with a disability and need technical assistance with Windows or any other Microsoft product, please reach out to the Disability Answer Desk via phone, chat or American Sign Language (via videophone).
Year recap
| Assistive Technology | Description | Links |
| Voice Access and Voice Typing | AI-powered dictation that cleans up your speech automatically across Voice Access and Voice Typing, conversational commands that “just work,” personalized vocab, adjustable command timing, profanity control, and expanded support for Chinese and Japanese. | [Fluid Dictation]* • [Natural Language Commands]* • [Custom Dictionary] • [Wait Time] • [Profanity Filter] • [Language Support] |
| Narrator | Get richer image descriptions, smoother Word reading, privacy tools like Screen Curtain, Speech Recap for quick review, and a new Braille Viewer and HD voices that sound natural, expressive and easier to follow. | [Image Descriptions] • [Word Improvements] • [Speech Recap] • [Screen Curtain] • [Braille Viewer] • [HD Voices] |
| Magnifier | Faster, clearer navigation with one-click zoom controls and HD voices for a more natural and engaging read-aloud experience. | [1 Click Zoom Toggle] • [Reset Zoom] • [HD Voices] |
Features marked with an asterisk (*) are available only on Copilot+ PCs.
