This Valentine's Day I had the slightly odd epiphany that social media is a bit like speed dating. (Stick with me, if you will.) As you doomscroll through the thousand new posts in your feed, you’re desperate to find the one that will grab and keep your attention. A witty one-liner or a shared interest. A meeting of minds. Something worthy of a like, or even a love.
Unfortunately, speed also tends to be a factor on the other side of the digital table. In the rush to woo their followers, content creators can focus too much on getting the posts out and not enough on whether the posts are user-friendly.
I could write for pages about the ins and outs of making content user-friendly, but this blog post focuses on accessibility.
How do you make sure that disabled users have the same access to your social media content as non-disabled users?
Here are 5 absolute basics I’ve learned from disability advocates. I've linked to several sources so you can learn more, acknowledging that I don't have lived experience of the physical or cognitive disabilities I've mentioned.
1 Always remember alt text for images
Alt text – the hidden text that describes images for those who can’t see them – has been around for years, and most digital users are aware of it. It's Accessibility 101. But if you don’t have a screen-reader, it still might be something you overlook.
This 2019 Twitter study analysed more than 1 million tweets with images and found that a shockingly low 0.1% included alt text. It reported 3 main reasons for this: users forgetting, not having time or not knowing what to write.
Helpfully, the magic of the digital world has given us Twitter bots like @AltTxtReminder that will ping you if you tweet an image without alt text. And other platforms like LinkedIn are improving their alt text options when you upload an image.
If you're unsure what to write, I'd recommend reading this article by Holly Tuke from the Big Hack, which gives some great tips on what makes effective alt text.
2 Use in-post image descriptions as well
The need for image descriptions goes beyond alt text, however. Appearance activist Carly Findlay includes visible image descriptions in the body of each post. And she has pleaded with other creators to do the same, especially for text-based images (such as memes, infographics or quotes).
Even though Carly may not use a screen-reader, her eyes are sensitive to light so text-based images can be hard to read.
Vision Australia estimates that Australia has at least 384,000 people who are blind or vision impaired (based on 2016 census data). So you could be actively excluding a lot of people from your digital content if you don't make time for these basic requirements.
3 Thinking hashtags? Think camels
Like images, hashtags can be a problem and not just for screen-readers. Stringing together lower-case words without spaces makes it hard to know where one word finishes and the next one begins. And it’s led to some pretty brutal hashtag failures, such as the infamous #susanalbumparty back in 2012.
Using upper camel case – where you capitalise the first letter of each word – would have made it clear exactly what that party was celebrating (#SusanAlbumParty).
Adult jokes aside, the problem really hits home when you listen to the way screen-readers typically tackle long, lower-case hashtags (as in this example we created). Or when you consider the way people with dyslexia and other cognitive disabilities process written language.
On a platform like Instagram, a single post can have up to 30 hashtags (although 11 is apparently the magic number). Without upper camel case, your readers could be in for a real hashtag nightmare.
4 Don't go overboard with emojis
The 2021 ‘red flag’ trend on Twitter put a new focus on the accessibility of emojis. When you don’t have a vision impairment, it can be tempting to load your posts with them. But did you know that screen-readers will read out a (sometimes-lengthy) description of each one?
Beth Finke, a blind author and disability commentator, gives this great example in her blog:
A friend sent me a text the other day that said this: “Wishing you a prosperous new year excited face with money symbols for eyes and stuck-out tongue excited face with money symbols for eyes and stuck-out tongue excited face with money symbols for eyes and stuck-out tongue excited face with money symbols for eyes and stuck-out tongue. You guys free tonight? Give me a call.”
I never got to the part where I was supposed to give them a call. The emojis got in the way.
In the red flag link above, the recommendations are to put emojis at the end of your sentences, limit them to 3 and avoid using them to replace words.
5 Describe your videos with audio tracks and subtitles (captions)
Finally, for today at least, we come to video. YouTube has been a good training ground for video producers on other platforms, including the newcomer Tiktok. So how do we ensure our videos are accessible – considering both vision and hearing?
Audio descriptions are an important tool to help people with vision impairments access videos. They are usually set up as a separate audio file that will describe any visual information not otherwise made clear.
At the same time, subtitles or captions are essential for people with hearing impairments. (They also come in handy for users who have their sound off.) You can, of course, use the auto-captioning tools available on many platforms, but it’s far better to transcribe the video yourself to create clear and accurate subtitles.
It might not be practical to post the full transcript alongside the subtitled video (that could make for a very long tweet thread, for example). But a transcript is perfect for a longer-form article, webpage or blog involving video (see Carly's link above). And it will make your content accessible to an even broader audience, so that can only be a good thing.
コメント