What is digital accessibility?
Digital accessibility means making digital content accessible to all, particularly to people with a disability who would otherwise be unable to consume it.
There are 43 million people living with blindness and 295 million people living with moderate-to-severe visual impairment (Orbis); 466 million people (6.1% of the global population) have a disabling hearing loss (Golden Steps ABA).
Digital accessibility gives them the possibility to enjoy books, videos, articles, podcasts, and more by removing barriers.
Why does it matter?
As writers and creators, we all have the responsibility to promote inclusion and take measures so that everyone has equitable access to information, education, and entertainment.
A small gesture for you; a big impact on someone’s life.
Imagine not being able to understand a video because it doesn’t have subtitles or not being able to fully enjoy a story because you don’t know what the pictures represent.
Digital accessibility and SEO
Accessible content helps not only promote inclusion and equity. It also helps to boost your writing.
Besides having more people enjoy your content, search engines like Google love digital accessibility.
Why?
It makes their job easier: when you add a description to a picture or a subtitle to a video, Google knows what it’s about. As a result, search engines rank your content higher giving it more visibility.
In a nutshell, a piece of content performs better and is more inclusive when it’s digitally accessible.
It’s a win-win.
5 Tips for digital accessibility
1. ALT Text
Every time you add an image to your content, you can make it accessible by adding the ALT text, i.e., a brief description of it so that screenreaders and search engines can understand what it illustrates.
Most platforms have this function embedded: you only have to click on the image, and the ALT option will appear. Below is a LinkedIn carousel I created to promote digital accessibility.
2. Accessible Hashtags
In May 2023, I wrote an article on Medium about How To Use Hashtags The Right Way. Most people write hashtags as one long word:
#ilovesubstacknewsletters
This format is tricky for screen readers and search engines to decode.
Instead, try capitalizing the first letter of each word:
#ILoveSubstackNewsletters
Notice the difference? This reader certainly did ❤️
“As a blind user who relies on a screen reader, I hope everyone reads this article.
Thank you so much for bringing this information to light.”
3. Video captions
Unfortunately, many creators post videos without subtitles, which excludes readers with hearing impairments.
The good thing is that many platforms generate automatic video captions, and you just have to click one button to accept them.
If you want to go fancy, platforms like Vimeo or Veed help generate subtitles and customize the font, color, style and even add visual elements.
Here is one of my LinkedIn videos with customized subtitles.
4. Color patterns
Choosing your brand and text colors is not just about aesthetics; it’s also about accessibility.
Some color combinations are hard to read for people with visual impairment, usually because of the lack of contrast.
A good rule of thumb is to create high-contrast combinations where the writing stands out from the background.
Also, keep in mind that some people are color-blind and struggle to see the difference between certain colors, particularly between red and green. Surprisingly, while a considerable 8% of men are color-blind, only 0.5% of women are.
If you want to be more technical about your palette choice, you can generate accessible color-blind combinations for free in Venngage.
5. Emojis
It never occurred to me that emojis are not accessible to everybody and screenreaders can’t decode them.
I often use trees and lemons in my publication but mostly as decoration 🌳🍋
Emojis are fine, provided they don’t replace a word and you don’t overuse them.
You can totally say, “I’m excited 🤩” and add the emoji that represents excitement. However, if you only use the emoji, screenreaders will not understand it, and it will be less SEO-friendly - and less inclusive.
Digital accessibility is not difficult, but it requires awareness and discipline.
Little changes at scale can make an impact on society.
It’s the power of one.
Let me know what you are going to adopt to make your content more inclusive and accessible!
Lemons & Lemonade🌳🍋
Something cool: talking about digital ,
has a great Substack for online dating, Meeting People: tips to get a phone number and take the first step.What you missed: If your writing is not getting views, it’s time to fix your title. 83% of readers won’t read any further. Ouch. Check out
’ course, The Ultimate Headline Toolkit.
These are important tips, Veronica. I always add alt text thanks to your prompts. And yes - emojis should be used sparingly as decoration (I love them too!)
Do you have any tips on ALT text? I want to start including it but I'm afraid I'll do it wrong.