Introduce accessibility into your digital content in three steps

Accessibility, or sometimes abbreviated to A11y (as in “a” then 11 characters (“ccessibilit”) then “y”) is the idea that all people can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with digital information.

By ‘all people,’ I mean folks with perfect eyesight to those requiring strong reading glasses, people with colour blindness to partial/full blindness, and those with cognitive challenges or physical barriers like tremors or paralysis. Accessibility is all about inclusivity.

Accessible content is inclusive because it ensures all people can consume it.

It’s important to note that this concept is not limited to the human body either, as barriers to accessibility also exist geographically. In parts of the world where broadband internet is not easily available, slow, ’heavy’ websites and/or downloading large files can impede information accessibility. This is an issue, especially if your content is meant to cater to an audience there.

So, how can you ensure your content is accessible to all? My advice is to start small and always be learning. This is the beginning of a constant learning process—I am still learning every day, and with every project. Once you find the information you need, apply it gradually in small steps.

Here are three ways to introduce accessibility into your digital content strategy and your organisation.

1: Choose a portion of content to focus on when optimising for accessibility

Your company probably produces content in multiple formats across many channels, including social media posts, videos, digital PDFs, and printed and online content. Odds are that you’ll quickly feel overwhelmed and demotivated if you try to make all this accessible at once. My advice? Focus on the low-hanging fruit.

Your website, social media posts, and digital content in general are great areas to focus on—starting with alt text (more on this in #2).

Leave the bigger accessibility projects, like redeveloping your website, for later when you’ve got more A11y knowledge under your belt and have time to plan for it.

2: Add descriptions, structure, and different formats

When optimising your content for accessibility, focus on these three areas:

• Descriptions (alt text): How does something look? Why is it there?
• Structure: What is something?
• Formats: Provide various digital and print versions of your content

Add alt text to describe an object’s purpose and appearance

Images are great—but only if you can see them. To ensure your images and graphics can be used by all people, you need to decide whether to write alternative (alt) text for it, or to mark it as an artifact (so it won’t appear to assistive technologies).

At the risk of generalising, most pictures should have a description. If in doubt, add some alt text! The description you include will depend on the purpose of the image. To learn more about the purpose of images, check out the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) on Image Concepts.

I also encourage you to read our guide, which explains how to write the best alt text for images.

There are also some situations when alt text is not required. For example, the same company logo in the footer of every page in your digital PDF can probably be “artifacted” so it won’t appear to Assistive Technology. Learn more about hiding decorative images in this W3C Working Group Note.

Use headings to create content structure and provide clear navigation

Compared to printed content, digital content—like websites and PDFs—often lacks structure. Structure is essential if your ability to consume content is impaired.

The most important structure to focus on early is heading levels in HTML. Your audience should be able to use headings to get an overview of the digital information provided. Read The A11y Project’s guide on accessible heading structure to learn more.

Offer your content in different formats

Providing multiple ways to consume your content is great and falls entirely within the spirit of making content accessible. For example, if your flagship content is a printed physical asset, turn it into a website so that people can also read it via a screen reader.

A smaller-sized, low-bandwidth version of the asset will also increase content accessibility in areas with a slow internet connection. However, these options are only helpful if you’re also adding alt text and structure to your content.

3: Share your accessibility knowledge with your peers

People are naturally resistant to change, so expect pushback during the scoping and implementation phases of your accessibility project.

The argument that this is a lot of effort to go to for the benefit of ‘a relatively small group of people’ is all too common. However, according to World Health Organization (WHO), “2.2 billion people have a near or distance vision impairment.” Not such a small group, if you ask me.

Ultimately, accessibility benefits everyone, so share your learnings as you go and raise the awareness and importance of content accessibility for all.

Write and design with all people in mind

Improving content accessibility will take time. Just remember that some accessibility is better than no accessibility at all. Start small and help bring your digital content to life for everyone.

To learn more about accessibility, check out the resources below.

• Introduction on Web Accessibility: A11y basics from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• Accessibility basic training: Live webinar with industry expert Chad Chelius
• Chax Chat accessibility podcast: In-depth (but easy to understand) knowledge from A11y experts Chad Chelius and Dax Castro
• Creating Accessible PDFs LinkedIn course: Learn the best ways to prep your Word or InDesign files for accessibility
• The business of accessibility: Learn how accessibility adds business value in this blog post by BookMachine

This article first appeared on the BookMachine Production & Operations blog.

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