Miro Accessibility

As we continually strive to improve the accessibility of Miro, we’ve made progress on a number of accessibility-related priorities in September:

Alternative methods for accessing and interacting with Miro boards: As part of our research, the Miro Accessibility team has been working on making canvas content and collaboration more robust across a number of various assistive technologies and devices. This work has been technically more demanding given that there are fewer standards for canvas content than for normal web content. Our work on this has progressed well, and we hope to share additional options to access and interact on Miro soon.

AI-assisted accessibility: We’ve mentioned in the past how we’re “testing AI support for fallback contents” (July). These tests proved to be promising, so we're working on rolling out a new feature that will help Miro users create more accessible board content themselves.

Accessible board content: We’re also testing a new feature that will assist creators in producing accessible Miro boards, for example by checking color contrast and other attributes important for inclusivity.

Accessibility audit: Miro teams have made significant progress on resolving the reported issues, getting us closer to updating our accessibility conformance report (ACR, sometimes referred to as VPAT).

Accessibility improvements: We’ve made a range of minor improvements including:

• access to more widget information through a keyboard shortcut

• improved keyboard shortcut support for Windows

• information on the color of a Sticky Note

• bug fixes for the board background color feature

Customer collaboration: With other Mironeers, our Head of Accessibility, Phil Strain, guided a customer workshop around inclusive workplace culture.

We’ve also been introducing some new internal programs and fora, to promote accessibility and to provide more effective support to other Miro teams. (Last April we shared our approach to accessibility at Miro at AxeCon, and since then we have made significant iterations on the approach which we will be excited to share in an upcoming update.)

We’re always open to feedback, so please contact us at any time at accessibility@miro.com!

The Accessibility team have had another busy month working towards our goal of making Miro a more accessible and inclusive experience for everyone.

We are thrilled to share some of the improvements we’ve made in August 2023:

Board summary: We introduced a board summary feature to give screen reader users a better understanding of the contents of a Miro board. When activated, the number and types of objects on the board are announced.

Assistive technologies: We added screen reader support for even more objects, including user story mapping, Kanban, mockup, and Rally cards. We also added information about sticky note colors to assistive technology announcements.

Keyboard navigation: We introduced more keyboard shortcuts to make navigating large Miro boards even easier. You can now jump straight to the first or last widget on a board. We also introduced a keyboard shortcut to add new comments while an object is selected. For more details about available keyboard shortcuts, please see our Keyboard Navigation article in the Help Center.

Our own Stefano Baldan also shared more about our approach to keyboard accessibility: See Miro accessibility: Introducing keyboard navigation for board objects on the Miro Engineering blog!

In the background, we have also been working on some smaller accessibility improvements, as well as building the foundations for some exciting accessibility features coming in the near future. Stay tuned for further details in the coming months!

We’re always happy to hear your feedback, so please contact us at any time at accessibility@miro.com.

July was another notable month for Miro accessibility — check out the accessibility updates we announced on the Miro blog! Here’s a quick review:

Alt text: After images were unlocked to be navigable by keyboard, we made it possible to add alt text to board images.

Assistive technologies: To make their content available to users of assistive technologies, we provided screen reader information for a number of additional objects. In July, these included documents, cards, shapes, curves, stencils, previews, program boards, code, and embeds.

Extended keyboard navigation: Comments, emoji, and tags are now keyboard-accessible as well.

Colors: Following a gradual rollout, everyone now benefits from text labels for color values, as well as from improved contrast when it comes to color selection itself.

AI-supported alternative content experiment: We’re testing AI support for fallback contents. The tests are promising — stay tuned for further details and plans!

GAAD talk at Futurice: Our lead designer, Kai Katonina, gave a talk about breaking barriers at work at Futurice. (Unfortunately, the talk page was removed, and the event was not recorded.)

This has been complemented by other, smaller accessibility fixes and improvements. It’s all part of our ongoing work to improve the Miro experience for everyone.

As always, if you have feedback or suggestions, please contact us at any time at accessibility@miro.com! We’d love to hear from you.

June was a great month for Miro users as we’ve unlocked canvas keyboard navigation, paving the way to make more and more objects accessible to users of assistive technology:

Keyboard navigation: After successful refining and testing, we rolled out canvas keyboard navigation to all users. The update allows users to navigate Miro boards linearly, spatially, and hierarchically—check out our documentation on shortcuts and hotkeys for details.

Assistive technologies: The recent keyboard navigation update allows board objects to be more perceivable and operable for users. In June, we integrated images, tables, text, emoji, and line objects to allow screen reader users to access information about these objects when navigating to them.

Board background colors: We released the option to change the background color of boards. While based on a popular request to suit branding and design preferences, the feature can be used to design dark boards that may be easier to read and can reduce eye strain.

In addition to these updates, Miro’s Head of Accessibility, Phil Strain, published an article about workplace accessibility in InformationWeek: How to Improve Workplace Accessibility With Assistive Tech.

(We are trying different formats to share what we are doing to improve the Miro experience for everyone. For feedback and suggestions, contact us at any time at accessibility@miro.com.)

Toolbars: In May, we released an update to all users improving the accessibility of Miro's toolbars. The update makes navigating the toolbars easier with both keyboard and screen readers.

Keyboard navigation: The internal test of keyboard navigation for board widgets is in its final stages. Our engineering team is fixing a couple of issues found during the testing phase before proceeding to a public release. As mentioned in the previous update, this improvement will make it possible to navigate through all board objects in three different ways: one after another in natural reading order; following a given direction (left, right, up, or down) in the 2D space; and entering or exiting container objects such as frames, card boards, or selection groups.

Assistive technologies: We are making more board objects perceivable and operable for users of assistive technologies, integrating the respective technical solution with more and more widgets. Screen readers can now read the information contained within sticky notes and frames. We are also making the navigation context more perceivable when accessing board objects with the keyboard by communicating the position of the current selection in the list of selectable objects, the eventual presence of a container object (e.g., a frame), and the available keyboard shortcuts to navigate the board from the current position.

Both of these updates will significantly improve the Miro experience for keyboard and screen reader users. As these improvements are relatively large and complex, we are taking the time to test them thoroughly.

Audit: As mentioned in April, we conducted a large, third-party accessibility audit. Work is in progress to resolve the issues that were identified. A significant number of them were already resolved in May. While several Miro teams are resolving additional issues, we are working with our audit partner to verify the progress.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day: Along with our accessibility- and inclusion-minded peers, we celebrated Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 18. We hosted an internal event to draw attention both to accessibility in general and to the occasion. We are exploring additional ways to share what we are doing to improve the Miro experience for everyone. For feedback and suggestions, contact us at any time at accessibility@miro.com.

In April, we made several accessibility-related improvements.

The biggest one includes improving keyboard navigation of board widgets, making it possible to navigate through all board objects in three different ways: one after another in natural reading order, following a given direction (left, right, up, or down) in the 2D space, and entering or exiting container objects such as frames, card boards, or selection groups. We’re currently testing the improvements internally, and expect to release them in the next few weeks.

With the respective technical solution in place, we’re also making more board objects perceivable and operable for users of assistive technologies. We’re integrating the solution with more and more components, i.e., widgets. Also in the next few weeks, this will increasingly improve the screen reader experience.

We’re currently still in the testing phase of an ongoing update improving the accessibility of selecting and changing colors, and are preparing it for full release. The same holds for allowing users to change the background color of boards. (We’ll update here, in our changelog, or on our blog.)

We received the results of our accessibility audit, which showed great improvements compared to last year’s audit. We’re currently reviewing the issues identified, and are preparing and planning the next steps. As mentioned previously, we’ll use the audit and the respective improvements to update our accessibility conformance report (ACR).

Apart from fixes and improvements too small to go into detail here, we’ve also shipped an update to make Miro toolbars more accessible. This update is in the process of being rolled out to everyone within the next few weeks.

Finally, the Accessibility team’s Stefano Baldan shared his Miro story, as well as our ideas about the sonification of boards in a post on the Miro Engineering blog: Audio Accessibility in Miro: A Hackathon Story in 3 Acts.

We’re actively exploring additional and alternative ways to share what we’re doing to improve the Miro experience for everyone. For feedback and suggestions, contact us at any time at accessibility@miro.com.

As mentioned in our last update, our current product priorities include:

• up-leveling keyboard navigation of board widgets,

• enabling notifications on board interactions for users of assistive technologies, and

• providing a better experience selecting and changing colors.

We have rolled out behind-the-scenes updates around keyboard navigation and board notifications, which we are integrating with widgets. For a more accessible experience selecting and changing colors, we’re testing the respective update and are preparing it for full release.

Also related to colors, we released a feature, currently available to users on free plans, that allows them to change a board’s background color. We’re fine-tuning and testing this feature before deciding on the next steps for roll-out.

We’ve started a new third-party audit to validate our current status when it comes to accessibility, with audit results expected in April. We’ll then work on addressing issues, and update our accessibility conformance report (ACR).

Miro’s Accessibility team’s Phil Strain (Head of Accessibility) and Stefano Baldan gave a talk at axe-con on March 15th. To learn more about our thinking around accessibility, you can access a recording and transcript of their presentation: Our approach to accessibility at Miro.

In March, we also released an e-book about inclusion, detailing how to make it easier to engage with people with disabilities or access needs. Get your own copy of 10 Principles for Inclusive Collaboration (PDF).

We’re actively exploring additional and alternative ways to share what we’re doing to improve the Miro experience for everyone. For feedback and suggestions, please reach out to us at accessibility@miro.com.

This update marks the start of a series that provides insight into the work of Miro’s Accessibility team, a group of accessibility specialists spanning Product, Design, and Engineering.

Our current user-facing priorities include

• improved keyboard navigation of board widgets,

• notifications on board interactions for users of assistive technologies, and

• a better experience selecting and changing colors.

Behind the scenes, we’re working on improvements to our testing infrastructure and processes, to make it easier for our teams to detect and fix accessibility problems.

We’re on track to making these improvements available in March or April, respectively. We will inform you about progress here or on other Miro channels, like in our changelog or on our blog.

We’ve also been fixing a number of smaller accessibility issues, and made other improvements. These include but are not limited to:

• general improvements for keyboard navigation

• adding missing media alternatives (like alt text)

• improving isolated issues with color contrast

• fixing an issue around widget cloning

• fixing an issue around reduced motion

Lastly, we’re preparing a comprehensive audit so as to validate our progress with respect to accessibility, and to provide an updated accessibility conformance report (ACR).

We’re going to explore additional and alternative ways to share more of what we’re doing to improve the Miro experience for everyone. For feedback and suggestions, please email us at accessibility@miro.com.

Miro partnered with Level Access to audit our product and issue an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) based on Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) that determines how compliant Miro is with standards for IT products accessibility. ACR will be regularly revised and updated to capture all accessibility updates being worked on by the Miro product team. 

The purpose of the ACR is to help Miro customers make informed decisions when starting to use the product as it allows them to understand Miro’s levels of accessibility compliance.

All end users users who access Miro using a screen reader and keyboard can now manage profile details. Users can:

• Update their information like first & last name, company name, industry, and role

• Upload, change, and remove their profile photos

• Change their email address and password

• Delete their profile

• Manage integrations from the Integrations tab

We also added support for the main flows of Miro Company & Team admins on the Enterprise Plan. It’s now possible to use keyboard and screen-reader navigation to:

• Search and navigate to teams

• Create new team(s)

• Manage team profile

• Search, browse, and filter active users

• Change user roles and license types

• Change security settings of the organization and individual teams

We also added alternative texts to key elements of Miro UI to make our product even more screen-reader friendly.

Please, stay tuned for more updates as our accessibility team is working on making collaboration in Miro even more inclusive

We are working on making Miro more accessible, and released the first significant bundle of product improvements for screen reader users. 

Screen reader users don’t need to take any additional steps to activate the accessibility functionality – when you open a Miro board with your screen reader, you will hear a prompt to activate screen reader mode.

Now screen reader users can be invited to Miro boards. Sign up & sign in are screen-reader friendly, it is possible to navigate through the Miro dashboard to open the required board, and the main types of board content such as frames, sticky notes, and shapes can now be perceived with the help of the screen reader. 

Please, note, that the flow described above works the best for:

• Users invited to the existing team on the Enterprise Plan

• Users on Team, Business, Consultant, Education or Enterprise Plan that are invited directly to the board as anonymous Guest Editors 

All of the flows described above are currently only available on the desktop. 

The current solution is read-only making it possible for users to access existing board content with the help of the screen reader, and does not allow creating or editing content on Miro boards yet. 

We will continue working on making Miro more accessible, and are planning to support other possible setups in the future. 

Visit the Help Center and watch the product video to learn more.

We have been focused on making Miro more accessible since the beginning of 2021. Today we are excited to share the first updates as we release the beta version of the following accessibility features:

• Sign-in and sign-up flows now better support keyboard navigation

• We unlocked basic dashboard navigation for screen-reader users: you can choose a project for your team and pick a board using your keyboard

• The color contrast of the UI elements on the board is WCAG2.1 AA compliant

All of the improvements described above are currently being tested with Miro users and leading UX & accessibility consultants, and our team will continue enhancing the existing functionality as well as adding new features to make our product even more accessible.

If you are interested in participating in the user testing phase of accessibility features, please, email us at accessibility@miro.com