Accessibility in communications refers to the inclusive design and delivery of information that ensures everyone can access and understand the content without barriers. Consideration should be given to the accessibility of all the features of a communication to ensure that no one is excluded from its message. From the language and pictures used to how they are arranged and formatted, there may be simple changes that improve accessibility.
It’s important that everything that you communicate is easy to access. The principles of good access are:
Alt text
Make sure to use alt-text in all social media, bulletins and on your website. Alt text is a text alternative to images, providing a description that can be read by screen readers and other assistive technologies. It allows people with visual impairments to understand the content of images when they cannot see them.
Design considerations
- Font size: Usually 12/14 points (larger for headings, if required)
- Typeface: Use accessible fonts, for example Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Helvetica, Verdana. These are clear and distinct.
- Colour: Provide a strong contrast to the text background
- Make sure text is left justified (unless being used as a heading or title).
- Ensure that text lines are not packed too closely together.
Language
- Avoid the use of abbreviations, acronyms and initials without explanation of what they stand for as this can cause barriers to understanding.
- Use images which are relevant to the content.
- Make sure that sentence structure is short and to the point.
- Put full stops at the end of bullet points which tells screen readers to pause.
- Think about whether you need to translate documents into community languages and/or provide video or audio to accompany online text.
Branding and design
At its simplest, branding is about being consistent about what your communications look like. For example, you could use the same type face and size throughout. You could also try to use the same set of colours in all your publicity.