Imagine a world where 15% of the population — over one billion people — could not access your content. When accessibility is overlooked in content creation, that’s the reality for many.
Writing for accessibility means crafting content that everyone, including those with disabilities, can easily understand and engage with.
By adhering to Web accessibility guidelines, writers not only comply with legal standards but also enhance their content’s reach and reader engagement.
This article will explore practical strategies for accessible writing, delve into the benefits of inclusive content, and offer tips on adhering to essential accessibility standards, ensuring your message resonates with a broader audience.
What Is Web Accessibility?
Web accessibility refers to the practice of creating digital content that anyone can use, regardless of any disabilities they may have. It’s not just about adding alternative text to images or making sure your videos have captions — though these are part of it.
Writing for accessibility means ensuring that all aspects of your content, from the language to the layout, are clear, intuitive, and inclusive.
By following Web accessibility guidelines, creators ensure that their content does not erect barriers that exclude people from accessing information and services. It’s about making every word count and every user feel welcome.
Why Making Your Writing Accessible Matters
Accessible writing casts a broader net, benefiting not only individuals with disabilities but also those who might not speak the language fluently or have learning differences like dyslexia.
By incorporating features like dyslexia-friendly fonts and ensuring compatibility with screen readers, your content becomes more user-friendly for everyone.
Furthermore, adhering to Web accessibility guidelines isn’t just a good practice — it’s often a legal requirement. Beyond compliance, making your writing accessible is a matter of ethical responsibility, ensuring that no potential reader is left behind because of preventable barriers.
How Does Writing for Accessibility Enhance Your Content’s Reach?
Writing for accessibility opens your content to a broader audience and enhances its overall reach and effectiveness.
By integrating web accessibility guidelines into your writing practices, you ensure that your content is not only inclusive but also more engaging for a diverse audience. Here’s how.
Breaking Down Barriers
Utilizing tools like screen readers and dyslexia-friendly fonts can significantly lower the barriers to accessing content.
Screen readers help visually impaired users by vocalizing text on the screen, while dyslexia-friendly fonts are designed to ease reading for those with dyslexia by using heavier letter strokes and unique character shapes to reduce confusion.
By incorporating these tools, your content will be more accessible to those who might otherwise struggle to engage with it.
Complying With Web Accessibility Guidelines
Following web accessibility guidelines is not only a legal or ethical obligation; it also improves your content’s usability.
These guidelines are designed to make web content more accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.
By complying with these standards, you ensure that your content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users.
Expanding Audience Reach
By writing for accessibility, you open your content to a broader audience. This includes not only the disabled community, which represents a significant portion of the global population, but also older individuals, non-native speakers, and people using mobile devices in challenging environments. Each of these groups benefits from straightforward, accessible content.
Enhancing User Engagement
Accessible content is often more precise and concise, making it easier for all users to understand and engage with. This clarity leads to higher satisfaction rates, increased time spent on your site, and better interaction with the provided content.
Moreover, accessible websites tend to have better SEO rankings, as search engines favor sites that provide a good user experience.
Improved User Experience
Accessible content typically involves a clearer, more concise use of language and a thoughtful layout.
Simplifying language and presenting information in a structured and predictable manner enhances readability and navigability, which in turn improves overall user satisfaction.
Users are likely to spend more time engaging with content that is easy to understand and interact with, leading to better retention rates and more meaningful interactions.
Accessible writing, by its nature, prioritizes user experience, making content more enjoyable and easier to consume for everyone.
SEO Benefits
The principles of writing for accessibility often overlap with SEO best practices. Search engines favor websites that provide a good user experience, characterized by fast load times, mobile-friendliness, and easy navigation—all of which are also hallmarks of accessible websites.
Moreover, using alt text for images and providing transcripts for video content not only aids users who rely on screen readers but also helps search engines better understand and index multimedia content. Consequently, by adhering to accessibility guidelines, you can enhance your content’s visibility and improve its search engine ranking.
Key Elements of Writing for Accessibility
Writing for accessibility ensures that content is understandable, navigable, and enjoyable for all users, regardless of their abilities or circumstances. Below are practical strategies to incorporate into your writing to make it more accessible.
Use of Clear and Simple Language
Using clear and simple language is foundational in writing for accessibility. This means avoiding technical jargon, industry-specific terminology, or complex language structures that might confuse readers.
Instead, opt for plain language that is straightforward and easy to understand. This approach not only benefits those with cognitive disabilities but also helps non-native speakers and younger readers.
For example, instead of writing, “Acquire sustenance,” use “Buy food.” This direct and straightforward language eliminates potential confusion and makes your content accessible to a broader audience.
Text Structure and Layout
Organizing content with a clear structure is crucial for accessibility. Use headings, subheadings, bullets, and numbered lists to break up text and make information accessible to scan.
Ensure that paragraphs are not too lengthy and that there is adequate spacing between lines and paragraphs. This structured approach helps users with attention deficits and cognitive disabilities to better understand and retain information.
For example, instead of a dense block of text, structure your content with headings such as ‘Introduction,’ ‘Details,’ and ‘Conclusion,’ and use lists to outline critical points, which aid in quicker comprehension and navigation.
Alternative Text for Images
Providing alternative text (alt text) for images is an essential aspect of web accessibility.
Alt text should concisely describe the image’s content or function, enabling screen reader users to understand pictures they cannot see. This practice also benefits users with slow internet connections or those who disable images to save data.
For example, for an image of a dog catching a frisbee, the compelling alt text could be “A brown dog jumping to catch a red frisbee in the park,” giving a clear description of the action and context.
Accessible Multimedia
Ensuring multimedia content is accessible involves providing subtitles, transcripts, and audio descriptions.
Subtitles allow deaf or hard-of-hearing users to read what is being spoken. At the same time, transcripts offer a text-based alternative to audio content, which is beneficial for those who prefer reading or have auditory processing issues.
Audio descriptions describe what is happening visually in a video, which is crucial for blind or visually impaired users. For instance, for a video tutorial on baking a cake, include subtitles for the dialogue, a transcript of the entire audio, and audio descriptions such as “The chef spreads frosting on the top layer of the cake.”
Inclusive Language
Inclusive language avoids biases, slang, or expressions that discriminate against specific groups based on gender, race, disability, or other characteristics. It promotes equality and respect through words.
Ensure that your language does not alienate, stereotype, or demean individuals based on personal attributes.
For example, use “firefighter” instead of “fireman” and “chairperson” instead of “chairman” to avoid gender bias, ensuring your language is welcoming and inclusive to all readers.
Incorporating these key elements into your writing not only adheres to web accessibility guidelines but significantly enhances the overall quality and reach of your content, making it more inclusive and beneficial for a diverse audience.
Implementing Accessibility in Your Writing
Incorporating accessibility into your writing is not just about compliance; it’s about creating a more inclusive and engaging experience for all readers.
Here are some practical strategies and tools to help you make your content accessible to everyone.
Tools and Resources for Creating Accessible Content
To ensure your content meets accessibility standards, several tools can assist you in evaluating and enhancing the accessibility of your web content.
Accessibility Spark
One such tool is Accessibility Spark. This platform is designed to make web accessibility achievable for businesses of all sizes, supporting adherence to strict ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards.
Accessibility Spark offers a five-minute easy implementation and an automated setup process. Once integrated, it conducts automatic daily scans of your website to ensure constant compliance, addressing any new content, forms, images, videos, or widgets.
It also provides an accessibility statement and a certification of performance, confirming that your site meets essential accessibility criteria.
For example, a small e-commerce website implemented Accessibility Spark, and within 48 hours, all accessibility issues were identified and adjusted. This not only helped the website comply with legal standards but also significantly improved the shopping experience for users with disabilities.
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Another excellent resource for enhancing web accessibility is the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. This tool provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content by highlighting potential issues directly on your page.
WAVE helps identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) errors, such as problems with text alternatives, structural elements, color contrast, and much more. It’s beneficial for quickly diagnosing issues and educating developers about the principles of accessible web design.
The tool highlights areas where color contrast is too low, posing difficulties for visually impaired students. After adjustments are made based on WAVE’s recommendations, the materials become more accessible. Similarly, it resolves many other accessibility issues.
axe Accessibility Checker
The axe Accessibility Checker is a powerful tool for developers and content creators who are committed to maintaining accessible websites and applications.
The axe Accessibility Checker runs comprehensive audits against the WCAG 2.1 standards and returns actionable, clear, and easy-to-understand feedback when integrated directly into web browsers as a plugin. It checks for accessibility issues at the code level, making it a favorite among developers for its accuracy and reliability.
For example, a digital marketing agency incorporated the axe Accessibility Checker into their web development process.
By doing so, they ensured that every website they built was audited for accessibility before going live. This proactive approach not only minimizes legal risks but also enhances the user experience for a diverse audience, including those with disabilities.
Best Practices for Integrating Accessibility
By integrating the best practices into your content creation process, you not only comply with accessibility standards but also foster an inclusive environment that values every user’s experience.
This commitment to accessibility can significantly enhance your brand’s reputation and expand your audience by making your content accessible to all. Here are some best practices.
Start with a clear structure: Use headings, lists, and a logical order to organize content.
Focus on readability: Keep sentences short and precise. Use tools like readability checkers to ensure your text is easy to understand.
Test your content: Use accessibility checkers to test how your content performs for users with disabilities. This includes checking color contrast, navigation ease, and compatibility with screen readers.
Educate your team: Ensure that everyone involved in content creation understands the importance of accessibility and knows how to implement it.
Continuously update and refine: Accessibility is not a one-time task but an ongoing commitment. Regularly review and update your content to accommodate new accessibility standards and technologies. This proactive approach ensures that your content remains accessible as digital environments evolve.
Incorporate feedback: Actively seek feedback from users with disabilities to understand their experiences and challenges with your content. This direct input can be invaluable in identifying areas for improvement that automated tools might miss. Implementing changes based on real user experiences can dramatically enhance the accessibility and usability of your content.
Examples of Accessible Writing
Accessible writing can significantly expand a content’s reach and impact. For instance, a government health portal revamped its content to meet accessibility standards. This involved simplifying medical jargon, adding alt text to all images, and providing video transcripts.
As a result, the portal saw a 50% increase in traffic from users who previously struggled to access the information due to disabilities or limited medical knowledge.
The revamp included translating complex medical terms into plain language, ensuring that each piece of content was accessible to individuals with varying levels of health literacy.
This not only helped in reaching more people but also ensured that the information provided could lead to better health outcomes.
Challenges and Considerations in Accessible Writing
Implementing accessible writing practices presents unique challenges that content creators must navigate to ensure their work is both inclusive and engaging. Here are some common obstacles and considerations.
Common Obstacles
One of the primary challenges in accessible writing is understanding and correctly implementing the technical aspects of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
These guidelines can be complex, and keeping up with their frequent updates requires constant vigilance. Additionally, retrofitting existing content to meet accessibility standards can be time-consuming and costly, especially for larger websites with extensive archives.
Another significant barrier is the lack of awareness or training about accessibility issues, which can lead to oversight and non-compliance.
Balancing Creativity with Accessibility
Many content creators struggle with the perception that focusing on accessibility might limit their creative expression. The challenge lies in crafting content that is both imaginative and compliant with accessibility standards.
For example, a visually stunning website might use non-standard layouts and dynamic content that are difficult for screen readers to interpret. To address this, creators can adopt a design-for-all approach, focusing on innovative ways to deliver accessible content without compromising on aesthetics or narrative quality.
For example, a graphic designer used high-contrast color schemes and creative typography that adhered to accessibility standards while maintaining a visually appealing layout. This approach not only enhanced the visual impact of the website but also ensured that it was accessible to individuals with visual impairments.
Navigating these challenges requires a commitment to continuous learning and improvement. By prioritizing accessibility, content creators can ensure that their work reaches a broader audience, complies with legal standards, and maintains a high level of creative excellence.
Bottomline
Writing for accessibility is not just a regulatory necessity but a pivotal practice that broadens your audience, enhances user engagement and improves SEO performance.
By incorporating tools like Accessibility Spark, WAVE, and axe Accessibility Checker and adopting clear language and structured layouts, content creators can meet the needs of all users.
Looking ahead, the trend towards more inclusive digital spaces will likely continue, with advances in technology further bridging gaps in accessibility. By committing to accessible writing now, you position yourself at the forefront of this evolving landscape!