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Description

Plaque de signalisation bilingue français-néerlandais, avec son texte en braille gravé en relief.

Source

Jiròni B. · original page

Licence

CC0 Public domain

Original photo, unretouched. The background is a version of it stylised by the site.

Accessibility and Multilingual

This theme covers two inclusion requirements: accessibility (contrast, keyboard navigation, tab order, alternative text, screen reader, not conveying information through color…

In short

This theme covers two inclusion requirements: accessibility (contrast, keyboard navigation, tab order, alternative text, screen reader, not conveying information through color alone) and multilingual (model metadata translations via cultures, report labels, regional formats, translated data, language-specific experience). Multilingual is treated here as a product topic, not decoration: one code base, multiple languages.

On this page

1. 1. Why this theme
2. 2. What this theme measures
3. 3. The 5 levels
4. 4. Milestones by level
5. 5. Detailed reading by level
   1. 🟢 Level 1 — Ignored
   2. 🟢 Level 2 — Basic
   3. 🟡 Level 3 — Navigable and translated
   4. 🟡 Level 4 — Tooled
   5. 🔴 Level 5 — Inclusive without fork
6. 6. Partial achievement and rating
7. 7. Move to the next level
8. 8. See also

Level: 🟢→🔴 · Theme code: ACC

1. Why this theme#

Color-blind users (red-green vision deficiency: up to around 8% of men and 0.5% of women of Northern European ancestry, less in other populations), users with low vision, or users who cannot use a mouse are excluded from a report that relies on color and hover. From a regulatory standpoint, digital accessibility is mandatory in several jurisdictions (see PD — compliance; reference framework: WCAG, level AA; to be verified depending on the applicable legal framework). On the language side: a report distributed to field teams in several countries that exists in only one language will be worked around; copying the report per language multiplies maintenance.

2. What this theme measures#

• Axis: from neglect to an inclusive, tooled product, without duplication by language.
• Key indicators: compliance of a sample of pages against an accessibility checklist; share of model objects translated per target language; number of reports duplicated by language.
• Units: % of criteria, % translation, number of copies.

3. The 5 levels#

4. Milestones by level#

5. Detailed reading by level#

🟢 Level 1 — Ignored#

• Signs: light gray text on white background, red/green only, one manually copied report per language.
• Difficulty: 1/5 · Effort: 1/5.

🟢 Level 2 — Basic#

• Signs: contrast checked, shapes and labels in addition to color, explicit titles. The gain is immediate and low-cost.
• Limit: a readable report can still be inaccessible by keyboard.
• Difficulty: 2/5 · Effort: 2/5.

🟡 Level 3 — Navigable and translated#

On the accessibility side: tab order, alternative text, screen reader user journeys, bookmarks/navigation usable by keyboard, avoid content that appears only on hover.

On the multilingual side, three distinct layers (a frequent source of confusion):

The user language is the one sent by their browser (Accept-Language header, modifiable via the language URL parameter for tests; the mobile app uses device regional settings); a label measure can read it with the DAX function USERCULTURE(), which returns the user culture only in a measure, not in a calculated column or table.

cultureInfo fr-FR
    translations
        model Model
            table FACT_VISITE
                caption: Visites
                description: Faits de visite
                column VIS_COD
                    caption: Code visite

(Structure excerpt, as serialized by Power BI Desktop translations: translations → model → translated object, with caption and description properties; TMDL documentation describes the cultures/ folder but not this content in detail, hence the value of starting from a tool-generated file.)

• Gain: one report, multiple languages.
• Limit: the data itself (dimension labels) is not translated by cultures; custom visuals may ignore some translations.
• Difficulty: 3/5 · Effort: 3/5.

🟡 Level 4 — Tooled#

• Signs: a single source of translations (versioned table or dictionary); a script generates model culture files; machine translation (AI service) produces a first draft that a human reviews; per-language completeness is measured; accessibility checks are rerun at every release.
• Gain: cost of a new language or a new measure close to zero.
• Limit: machine translation of ambiguous business terms; glossary required.
• Difficulty: 4/5 · Effort: 4/5.

🔴 Level 5 — Inclusive without fork#

• Signs: zero copies per language; real accessibility audit; feedback from affected users in the roadmap; adding a language in a few days.
• Gain: proven inclusion; single maintenance stream.
• Limit: full accessibility of a custom visual depends on its publisher; level 5 remains partly outside the team's control.
• Difficulty: 5/5 · Effort: 5/5.

6. Partial achievement and rating#

Common rule. The theme has two components (accessibility, multilingual): rate milestones separately, without offsetting (a 5 in translation does not make up for a 1 in accessibility). If one of the two is out of scope (single country, no legal requirement), mark corresponding milestones “not applicable” and remove them from the average, while recording it. “Partial 5”: one instance for 3 languages (5.1 = 1), external audit never done (5.2 = 0), feedback integrated informally (5.3 = 0.5), language added in 2 weeks (5.4 = 0.5).

7. Move to the next level#

Possible means (optional):

Pitfalls:

• False positive: “accessible” because the automated checker found nothing; it only detects part of defects, hence real keyboard and screen reader testing.
• Goodhart: measuring the % of visuals with alternative text encourages “Chart” as alternative text.
• Translating column names in code (DAX) rather than in cultures: references and maintainability break. The model keeps its source names; only translations change display.
• Formats: a different decimal separator (comma/period) can distort a string built by DAX concatenation.

8. See also#

• Related themes: VIZ · MOD · DAX · IND · TST
• Other matrices: PD — Metadata, Lineage, and Documentation · PD — Adoption and Change Management · DL — documentation
• Content: Cross-Cutting Power BI Good Practices · OneLake mobile — overview · Reporting project checklist · VCS and SQL/BI data

✻ Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5