Accessibility in Zoho CRM: Not just a feature—a way to empower

Accessibility in Zoho CRM: Not just a feature—a way to empower

For instructions on setting up these controls, please check this help document: Configuring accessibility controls.
Hello everyone,

Today (December 3, 2024), on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we begin our journey towards a CRM that empowers everyone. This first step makes it possible for more users of all abilities to do their best work in Zoho CRM.

But this is only the start.

We need your support and feedback as we work towards a future of inclusive tools, businesses, and communities where no one's excluded. We invite you to watch the video below for a quick overview of our first update:


What is accessibility, and why does it matter in Zoho CRM?

CRM and other business software tools are deeply woven into our work lives, and the experience of using them often drifts out of focus as we navigate through the interfaces, analyze data, and take action. But for users with disabilities, the experience is quite different.

Just as people who use wheelchairs face unique challenges in navigating through physical spaces, users with disabilities often experience business software tools as spaces filled with obstacles. User interfaces are often crowded with visual elements that make navigation difficult. Every click and every form demands attention and effort, and information is often presented in ways that not everyone can easily perceive. And the list of challenges goes on.

When accessibility is not built into business software like Zoho CRM, it unintentionally amplifies barriers instead of empowering users to work without limits.

Accessibility is the removal of these barriers. It helps everyone use products, services, devices, or environments and benefit from them. Even seemingly small changes can make a big difference for many users. For example:
  • Reading tiny text is challenging, especially for those with visual impairments and older individuals. Adjusting font sizes can greatly enhance readability for all.
  • Color is commonly used to indicate important information. For instance, green for enabled switches or red for mandatory fields. Having this information available by other means (text, symbols, and so on) helps users with color vision impairments.
  • Users who can't use a mouse often use keyboards instead. Providing full keyboard access to the CRM and the option to skip sections expands navigation for all users.

Accessibility in Zoho CRM

For the millions of users who rely on Zoho CRM daily—especially those with disabilities—accessibility controls give them the tools they deserve to achieve what they're capable of.

Just as businesses can customize our CRM to meet their specific requirements, individual users can leverage 18 accessibility controls to accommodate their unique needs. They no longer have to deal with a "standard" CRM that only works for users without disabilities. Instead, they can perform all their tasks with ease in a CRM that can be configured to match their unique needs.

Accessibility controls

Our accessibility controls are designed to support users with vision impairments, motor disabilities, and those who could benefit from enhanced interaction options. You can access these via Setup > General > Personal Settings > Accessibility. You can access certain controls using the Accessibility shortcut, located in the toolbar at the bottom. Let's look at each set of controls.

Vision

  • Screen reader support: Users who are blind or have visual impairments rely on screen readers to complete tasks. Zoho CRM now supports popular screen readers by default, allowing for better understanding and navigation. Users can also enhance their experience by enabling standard navigation order and ARIA landmarks.
    A user goes through a list of contacts in the CRM using a screen reader.
  • Zoom support: Users with vision impairment often need to zoom into parts of the interface to perceive details. Zoho CRM now supports browsers' zoom features by default. Users can zoom up to 150% without disrupting the interface's cohesion.
    A user zooms into a record detail page. The CRM's UI does not lose its structure at any point.
  • Adjustable font size and spacing: Text is crucial in CRM interfaces and affects user experience. Preferences for text size vary, with those with low vision preferring larger text and those with higher visual acuity preferring smaller text. Users can easily adjust font size for better readability, eliminating the need to zoom in.
    A user uses the live preview option to increase the font size.

    Similarly, users can adjust spacing to make text easier to read.
    A user uses the live preview option to increase spacing. The text is much more legible now.
  • Magnify text on hover: At times, we may have no trouble with most text elements but face challenges with certain ones. In such cases, users can use this option to zoom-on-demand. Simply press the alt (Windows) or option (Mac) key to enlarge difficult-to-read text elements.
    A user hovers over certain elements to get an enlarged view. This is done in a deal module kanban view.
  • Motion control: Although animations can enhance an interface's appeal, they can also be distracting and uncomfortable for users, especially after extended use. In fact, excessive animations may even induce dizziness and nausea in individuals with vestibular impairments. Accordingly, users now have the option to reduce animations for a distraction-free experience that's easy on the eyes.
    A popup smoothly opens from the bottom toolbar. With the motion control enabled, it appears immediately without the smooth motion.
  • Switch labels: Toggle switches generally use color to indicate their state, such as green to indicate a toggle is enabled. This can be a barrier for users with color vision impairments. With this option enabled, users can quickly determine the state of a switch in Zoho CRM, as shown below:

  • Strikethrough disabled buttons: Disabled buttons are grayed out like toggle switches, but this can be difficult to distinguish for users with color vision impairment. Enabling a strikethrough cue makes it easier for users to identify these buttons, as shown in the example below:
    Disabled buttons have multiple lines running through them from the top-right to the bottom left.
  • Form display mode: Filling out forms can be difficult for users with disabilities, as it can require zooming in, scrolling, and tabbing through fields. To make it easier, users can enable the form display mode, which users can use to shrink a form down to its mandatory fields, fill them out, and then move on to the next task.

  • Mandatory field appearance: To save records, users often have to deal with mandatory fields, which are typically marked with red accent lines. However, this can be problematic for those with color vision challenges. Thankfully, users can now personalize the presentation of mandatory fields, such as by denoting them with an asterisk or a "Required" label.

  • Custom error message display: Forms can pose a challenge for users with color vision impairment, particularly when it comes to error messages. These messages are typically displayed in red, but this may not be visible for those with color blindness. To address this, users can now select a more accessible color and even include an error icon for easier identification.
    Error messages for two fields are displayed with an icon and an accessible color.
  • Flashing screens for notifications: It's easy to miss notifications in Zoho CRM in certain cases. For example, a user with low vision may be working with a zoomed-in view, which may keep the notification signal out of sight. To address this, users can enable this option, which causes the screen to flash twice when they receive a notification.
    The screen flashes in a yellow shade when the user previews the flash screen option.
  • ARIA landmarks: Users without low vision can perceive an interface's structure at a glance and navigate directly to the section they want. This isn't always the case for users accessing Zoho CRM with assistive technology like screen readers. To help them perceive and navigate the interface easily, they can enable ARIA landmarks, which help them understand the page quickly and skip to the sections they need to get their work done.
    User skips to a section in the home page usig ARIA landmarks. The different sections on the home page are clearly marked in boxes with accessible colors and labels.

Motor

  • Keyboard shortcuts: Many users with and without disabilities prefer using their keyboards to navigate around the CRM and take actions. They can create and use keyboard shortcuts for frequently performed actions. This option has already been released and will now be moved under the Accessibility tab.

  • Zia voice assistant: Some users may not be able to use a mouse or a keyboard. An example would be users with severe motor impairments. We now offer our built-in Zia Voice Assistant to assist such users in navigating Zoho CRM and completing their tasks. After you've enabled this option, press Control + Z + V or click the microphone icon in the bottom bar and start telling Zia what to do. Please note that only English language voice commands are supported for now; it isn't yet available in CN, SA, or JP DCs.
    A user speaks to Zia Voice Assistant to open a lead record and click the Edit button within it.

Interaction

  • Reading focus: The CRM interface is often packed with information so as to present an all-in-one view, but this can be overwhelming for users who are easily distracted. Reading focus enables them to block out distractions and focus solely on the area around their cursor.
    A user has enabled reading focus. Most the of screen is masked except a small rectangular box around the cursor. This box moves as the user moves the cursor.
  • Underline links: Links are important for navigating Zoho CRM, but it's crucial to distinguish them from regular text. This is usually done through color, which can be problematic for users with color vision impairment. In such cases, they can have links underlined for easy identification.
    In a list of tasks, the Task name and the contact name are underlined to show that they are links to records. Other elements like status and priority are not underlined to indicate that they are not links.
  • Standard navigation order: For users navigating the CRM with a screen reader and a keyboard, this option ensures that navigation starts from the first DOM element and proceeds in a consistent pattern (from top to bottom, left to right, and without skipping any elements).

Achieving WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance: A major step towards inclusive accessibility
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a globally recognized framework of recommendations designed to enhance web accessibility. With our accessibility controls in place, we're happy to announce that we're compliant with WCAG 2.2. Level AA.
Note: For the following features, full compatibility is currently limited to the home page, custom view, and standard record view for create, edit, clone, and details pages:
  • Screen reader
  • Zoom
  • Custom error message display
  • ARIA Landmark
  • Standard navigation order
For the following features, full compatibility is currently limited to the standard record view of create, edit, clone, and details pages:
  • Form display mode
  • Mandatory field display
We encourage you to do the following:
  • Explore: Familiarize yourself with the new accessibility controls and let us know what works and what doesn't.
  • Share: Inform your teams and peers about these enhancements.
  • Support: Assist others in customizing their settings for the best experience.
Availability
Release plan: Soon, we'll be rolling out accessibility controls in a phased manner for all customers.

[13 Jan 2025] Accessibility controls are now available to all users in all DCs.

Editions: All
DCs: All
To learn more about these controls, please refer this help document: Configuring Accessibility Controls.
Accessibility is a moving target, and we need your help to ensure that we're constantly moving towards it. Please spread the word and share your feedback.

    • Recent Topics

    • Setting default From address when replying to request

      At the moment, if I want to reply to a request, the From field has three options, company@zohosupport.com, support@company.zohosupport.com, and support@company.com.  The first two are really internal address that should never be seen by the customer and

    • Auto-Create OneDrive Folder Structure Upon Lead Creation

      Hello, New to Zoho and looking for help on a critical process automation I'm looking to implement. My company currently utilizes OneDrive for file management and the folder structure is Proposals -> Client Name -> Address (where I need to initially create

    • 🔍 How to effectively organize data in a CRM? – My approach and questions for you

      Dear ZOHOssians! While working on organizing data in a CRM, I decided to use the native modules: Leads, Deals, Contacts, and Accounts as a solid foundation for managing processes. However, I’m now exploring the next steps and considering various options

    • Stock Count

      The stock count is a nice new feature, but we cannot figure out how to: 1. Use it without assigning to a person, we have a team or one of multiple do stock counts as do most any company. 2. Add any extra fields to what the "counter" sees. The most important

    • Annoying Pop-Up Zoho Advertisements and Announcements Within Apps

      It is beyond frustrating to have to close out Zoho's announcements for Webinars, Zoholics, updates, events, etc while working within ANY of the Zoho apps. I see it when accessing Zoho One, Cliq, Creator, and CRM. Zoho boasts to be a professional solution

    • Images uploaded onto text notes through the mobile app won't render

      When uploading am image onto a text note, exiting the note and going back in, the image is gone and shows an error icon in its place, and also won't display directly on other devices, including on the desktop version. Uploading the same image on the same

    • Marking a Desk ticket as Unread after merge

      We have a custom script that runs against every new ticket and auto-merges it with any existing ticket that matches our criteria. That works fine but there is no functionality that reverts the newly-updated ticket back to an "unread" state. I found the

    • Trying to do commission tracking with zoho crm, can i do a Lookup against multiple fields in a module?

      So i'm still designing my zoho one crm as i come over from salesforce. One of the things i'm trying to build is a commission tracking module. At some point i'll probably hire someone to help with custom code, I'm just proof of concepting it. I"m not sure

    • Internal Support and Assigning Tickets

      I want to set up an Internal Desk Support system. Here is what I need... We need our internal "Support" staff to be the Ticket Owner We need to be able to identify who the "Account Manager" is on that client and get emails as part of the ticket. I'd like

    • Filter a Zoho Creator main report by a field and display other related reports in sections on a Zoho Creator page

      Hi, How can I filter a Zoho Creator main report by a field and display other related reports in sections on a Zoho Creator page? Part of what I was given below is setting up sub-reports, but the subform field prompted me to link a form, not a report.

    • FAQs on Approval Process - Post your Questions

      Dear All, Greetings! Approval process allows to validate records and streamline the process across organization to ensure a systematic approach. To resolve your probable queries, we are constantly gathering relevant FAQs and publishing them to address

    • Recurring Events Not Appearing in "My Events" and therefore not syncing with Google Apps

      We use the Google Sync functionality for our events, and it appears to have been working fine except: I've created a set of recurring events that I noticed were missing from my Google Apps calendar. Upon further research, it appears this is occurring

    • Introducing Social Toolkit

      Hi everyone, We're thrilled to launch Social Toolkit, a one-stop dashboard to help take your social media presence to new levels by letting you create aesthetic profiles and share content that your audience will actually enjoy engaging with. Social Toolkit

    • Requesting a file upload in Zoho Workplace not possible?

      I’m new to Zoho Workplace and am mostly liking it. However, it seems as though collecting/requesting documents is not available in the workplace version of WorkDrive. Am I missing something, or would I need to subscribe separately to another WorkDrive

    • Poor Email Delivery

      Our company used Zoho about 2 years ago and always had trouble understanding why a great deal of our emails from Zoho CRM and Zoho Marketing Automation ended up in the recipient's spam folder regardless of the email content and despite having our domain

    • No table view in "All departmens" mode

      Hello, I would like to have an overview of all tickets, so I have to switch to "all departments". But here I don't have the possibility to activate the table view. But this is mandatory, so that I can see certain fields without having to open each ticket

    • Where to Map Candidate fields to Employee fields in Zoho People 5.0

      I can not find options anywhere on Zoho people 5.0 where I can choose how the data fields are mapped from the candidate form to the onboarding form

    • Get Creator Form Record ID and Subform ID's

      Good Afternoon everyone. I have a Creator form with a on success workflow. I'm trying to get the form record ID and the subform record ID(s) but they keep coming up null. There is data in the subform I use it elsewhere. Can anyone help me pull the ID's.

    • WhatsApp and Zoho Creator Integration

      How we have integrate WhatsApp App with Zoho Creator without using external application ?

    • Guidance on Making Zoho Desk Connections Available for All Data Centers

      Hi Team, I’m currently developing an application using Zoho Desk connections to manage OAuth for my third-party products. Could you please advise on the steps required to make it available across all data centers? Looking forward to your thoughts on

    • Can we create Sprint with tasks from Multiple projects?

      Hi Team, We were using Zoho Sprints for quite sometime. Currently we have started the process of Sprint method. We couldnt create the active sprint board with the tasks from multiple projects. I would like to know whether this is possible or Any timeline

    • Ability to use Dynamic goals in Motivator

      Is there any way to create dynamic goals in Zoho Motivator? By "dynamic" I mean: not the same target every period, but varying from period to period. For example, in our organization, sales reps are supposed to target beating the same month's sales last

    • Using Snippets in Comments

      One of our Agents asked about using snippets in comments. We don't see this as an option at this time, only in reply mode. Is there a way to enable this?

    • Calendar - "super compact" week view

      every time i go to my calendar i have to re-engage the "super-compact view" for the week view...is there a way to make "super-compact" a default view so I dont have to keep on setting it manually?

    • zoho calendar week view - "super compact by default"

      every time i go to my calendar i have to re-engage the "super-compact view" for the week view...is there a way to make "super-compact" a default view so I dont have to keep on setting it manually?

    • CRM portal: no Create/Edit options available for custom module

      I'm experimenting with setting up a CRM portal. I'm not able to select Create and Edit permissions for a custom module, even though the data sharing settings for this module has been set to Public Read/Write/Delete. What other settings do I need to enable

    • Which are the IP addresses to use for 'split delivery' with Office 365? (Zoho mail inbound gateway)

      Hi, I'm trying to set up 'split delivery' (email routing) with Office 365. I'm following the instructions to set up Office 365 as the primary server (https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/adminconsole/coexistence-with-office365.html) One of the prerequisites

    • Allow submitter to type a choice in a 'Multiple Choice' field

      Is there any way to allow the person filling out a form to manually type in a choice in the 'Multiple Choice' field? So like have the option of allowing the last field to be 'Other' with an input field...

    • How to Add Portal Users in Zoho Creator's Development Environment for Testing?

      Hello, I’m working on a Creator app with a customer portal and implementing filters based on the logged-in user (customer). To test these filter functions, I'd like to simulate or add customer portal users in the development environment/database. Is there

    • Mapping a custom picklist to another picklist when creating a connected record with a workflow

      Hi, I have some workflows that move records between pipelines, the issue is that when setting up the workflow that creates the connected record, there is no option to map the value from a picklist in one pipeline to another. Please watch: https://www.loom.com/share/4e5fa969b21043748414154c036cdd47?sid=dca0fd16-73f2-4fe6-a9d3-7a4c0c40c2e6

    • Initiate data import using Deluge script

      Is it possible to open the screen to begin the importing of new records using Deluge? So for example, my users would click a button on a form that starts a workflow action. This action would then open the screen to "Import Data for Current User Projects".

    • Whats App Automation

      It would be nice to be able to send out an automated whats app message template on moving stages or creation of a ticket (same as you can do for automated emails). Currently only automated emails can be sent. Also, if whats app could be used more effectively

    • Unable to add organization consultants and contractors in Zoho People

      Hello Team: I am unable to add my few consultants and contractors in Zoho People. How to add these people as Users?

    • Lookup field - Can I avoid using advanced search?

      I have a lookup field in my app that has surpassed 500,000 records, now basic search is disabled and I'm forced to use advanced search. That adds multiple steps to what used to be very simple. Before: Select field > Type last digits of product code and

    • Forced Tooltip on Maps View

      Please remove the forced tool tip data points and ONLY include those listed in the "Include Columns for Tooltip" area. Also, disable the tool tip if no fields in there. With a lat/lng map, it forces showing those (and color field, lat count) and will

    • Last sync date/time as a widget

      Is there any way to get the last date/time that the data shown (reports and dashboard) was last updated. For example, If I have our data being synced every 3 hours and the last was done 2 hrs ago, I would like to show date/time of update OR updated #{hrs}

    • Function #19: Associate invoice templates automatically based on branch

      Much like the custom function we shared last week, today's function also aims to facilitate the automatic association of invoice templates. When you're managing business operations across various branches, there may be a need to create and send invoices

    • how to create view in leads module to that will show all leads + converted leads?

      is it possible to make custom view that combine all leads + converted leads? how to do that

    • Milestone

      New to Zoho and trying to get acquainted. According to PMI a milestone "anticipates what the project is supposed to achieve at a pre-set date. It should describe a desired state of affairs, a desired future situation. There are two important aspects to this. First, the concept refers to a point in time, not a period of time. Second, it looks forward to what we want to create, not how we create it." Why are Zoho milestones defined between two dates and as bins for tasks? Why would you even consider

    • How to send mail with js SDK

      Hell o I'm using https://live.zwidgets.com/js-sdk/1.2/ZohoEmbededAppSDK.min.js, for my widget in CRM (built with sigma) Is it possible to send email from js file, I try ti use that ZOHO.CRM.API.sendMail({ "Entity": "Accounts", "RecordID": sharedVariableEntityId,

    • Next Page