When people talk about digital accessibility, the focus is usually on websites or external digital services, rarely on Power BI. But if your organisation relies on Power BI to communicate performance, decisions, risk, or strategy, then those reports are digital products. And if users can’t access them, they’re excluded from critical conversations.

Accessibility is not theoretical for me. After a work injury left me with nerve damage in both hands, a small hardware adjustment completely changed how I could work. That experience reshaped my understanding of design from an engineering perspective: accessibility isn’t an enhancement, it’s what enables participation.

In this practical, development-focused session, I translate the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust - into clear Power BI development practices. We’ll look at how engineering choices in layout, colour systems, navigation paths, tab order, screen reader behaviour, and text elements directly affect who can use a report and how easily they can do so.

We will also explore how AI can support developers by generating dynamic, context-aware alternative text for visuals, a technique that can help describe charts more accurately, reduce manual effort, and raise accessibility quality across a reporting suite.

Attendees will leave with practical, repeatable techniques for structuring Power BI reports to improve usability, support accessibility compliance, and ensure that analytics outputs are inclusive by design and usable by everyone.