Five simple considerations for more inclusive online content

As the conversation around inclusive communication progresses, a lot of you are starting to reach out to me with questions about the different ways in which we can make our website content that much more accessible to audience members who have disabilities, as well as the elderly. So today, I thought I’d share a few high-level ideas to consider as content creators, should you want to make sure the design decisions you make with regards to your online content do align with the general core principles of international accessibility guidelines, known as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (or WCAG for short).

WCAG represents the international standard that defines “the rules of the game”, when it comes to digital inclusion and accessibility. There are dozens of such guidelines that can prove very relevant to your content, such as use of colour, contrast, document structure, text alternatives for images, and so on. These guidelines are essentially a set of best practices for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG is developed and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community that works to develop standards for the web. These guidelines provide a set of criteria that web content must meet in order to be considered “accessible”.

Applying these guidelines leads to approaching the design and creation of your content in new, innovative ways. In today’s post, I want to introduce you to a few examples of starting points to consider, so you can start designing content on your website in a way that will be more inclusive of those audience members who have disabilities.

01. More inclusive online content through use of colour and contrast

When it comes to the use of colours, a lot of things can go wrong, especially for audience members who are colourblind, or are somehow marginalized due to their inability to reliably perceive or distinguish colours. One of the very important questions you can ask yourself when it comes to the use of colour relates to whether the information presented in your pages is conveyed through the use of colour alone. Is the ability to distinguish between colours mandatory to understand the interface or its components? Does all text have a minimum colour contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for regular-sized text, or 3.0 to 1 for larger-sized text against its background? Is colour is used as the only way to distinguish a hyperlink from its surrounding content? Supporting the use of colour with text, or other visual cues is a great way to make sure the content remains accessible to those who struggle with perceiving colours the way other people do.

02. More inclusive online content through use of images

Next comes the use of images, graphs, and other visual assets. Some of the great questions to keep in mind when it comes to include whether the alternative text that is planned for an informative image actually provides the same information as the image itself, or whether the alternative text for actionable images (such as for image links, buttons or image map areas) clearly identify the link destination or its purpose. Along the same considerations, verifying whether complex images or infographics are explained fully in text in the page content, while also being provided with short alternative text descriptions will go a long way in helping audience members who can’t see the image still make sense of what these visuals contribute to the content. As for decorative images (images that do not require any alternative text), are they identified as such, so they can be ignored by assistive technologies? And finally, are you making sure none of your images have text embedded in them? These are some of the things you need to look out for when it comes to adding accessible images to your pages.

03. More inclusive online content through use of page titles

Page titles are often used by search engines to understand the content of the page and determine their relevance to a user’s search query. Clear and descriptive titles help improve the visibility of page in search results. Since page titles are often used as the default bookmark name when an audience member saves the page to their browser, meaningful title can make it easier for audience members to find and access pages in the future. From an accessibility standpoint, page titles are often used by assistive technologies like screen readers to identify the page and provide context. Providing a clear and meaningful page title can help improve the accessibility of a page for users who rely on these technologies. In fact, one of the very first thing someone using a screen reader will look for when exploring a web page will be whether they can get a rapid confirmation about what the page is about, what its purpose is, and what it actually contains. Clearly defining the value of the page title will go a long way in helping people who rely on assistive technologies to get a quick confirmation about the nature of the page, so they can decide whether it’s worth their time and energy to start traversing it.

04. More inclusive online content through use of section headings

Section headings are also very important when it comes to helping the audience more successfully scan the content of your documents and wrap their heads around what the copy is about, without necessarily having to read every single word. Beyond the visual cues provided by meaningful and reliable section headings, it’s important that all text that looks and acts like a section heading be marked up as a heading using the appropriate HTML tag for a few reasons. This allows assistive technologies like screen readers to properly identify and interpret the text as a section heading, which will prove invaluable for audience members who are using these technologies to navigate a web page, as it allows them to easily find and understand the structure of the page. Not to mention that using the appropriate HTML tags to mark up headings can improve Search Engine Optimization! Search engines use the structure of a web page, including the use of headings, to understand the content and rank it in search results. By using the appropriate HTML tags, you can help search engines better understand the content of your page and improve its ranking.

05. More inclusive online content through use of captions

Videos are another very important aspect of what we would consider the dynamic and engaging web. But inaccessible videos will cause problems for your audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing. Consequently, captioning your videos is important for a number of reasons. First and foremost, captions make your videos accessible to those who have an auditory impairment. Providing synchronized captions allows everyone to access and enjoy your content, regardless of their ability to hear. Additionally, captions can make your videos more engaging and easier to understand for all viewers. For example, if your video includes dialogue, captions can help clarify who is speaking and what they are saying. Captions can also be helpful for viewers who are watching your video in a noisy environment such as an airport or a gym, or simply on a device with the sound turned off. By providing captions, you can ensure that your videos are accessible and enjoyable for a wider audience, and better ranked by search engines, and generally more table by everyone.

A matter of fairness and equal access

In today’s post, we’ve seen a few examples of ways in which you can make your content more accessible to your audience that has disabilities. Always keep in mind that making your content accessible is a matter of fairness and equal access. Audience members with disabilities have the same right to access and enjoy your content as anyone else, and it is important to ensure that they are able to do so.

Additionally, making your content accessible can also improve the user experience for all audience members. As an example, we saw above how providing captions for videos can make the content more engaging and easier to understand for everyone, so it’s a win-win. Overall, ensuring that your content is accessible is essential for creating a more inclusive and accessible world.

Any of the five examples we covered today constitutes an excellent starting point to improve the accessibility of your website, and help you make you content that much more inclusive of your audience members who have different types of disabilities. Should you want to explore that topic further, be sure to take a look at our weekly “Inclusive Web Tips”, for dozens of other ideas that draw from the considerations coming from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.