Social media content accessibility: make it less stressful for others
It’s time to make your content more accessible online. Social media has become a crucial part of our lives. Businesses start to join the movement and create social media accounts to make their services more visible on the web. If you have a business page and share the content with the followers, you should consider the audience of your page. It is important to ensure the accessibility of the posts and informative communication.
Content accessibility: how do you treat the term?
If we take a less global perspective, we should refer to the number of followers that can see your business page online. But when it comes to content accessibility, it refers to the problem of disabled people who can’t easily reach the information on the page. Different disabilities make it impossible to enjoy the content on the web easily. These people are potentially disabled. They can experience hearing loss, some issues with their blindness. It also refers to people with dyslexia.
There are so many such cases. People around the world suffer from different types of disabilities that can make them feel abandoned on the web. If you want to make your content accessible to everyone, you should take care of the accessibility of the content. Some businesses develop new strategies for their online content, and others use transcription services for qualitative research to help catch difficult words. Considering the number of people with disabilities, the decision towards content accessibility should be made.
How to make content online more accessible?
Why should businesses join the movement and work on accessibility? First off, it is morally correct to take care of those followers who experience difficulties with consuming the content. And the second reason is the flow of new customers. When you make your content understandable for a bigger number of people, you can get more clients. The reasons to join the initiative are clear. Now let’s see what steps you can take to make accessibility a reality.
Alternative text is a nice idea
Do you know what the alternative text is? These are the human-generated transcripts that offer a short description of the photo. When you post a photo, you should add a small text and describe in short what is on the picture. You can use this feature when listing on Facebook. When editing the picture, you will find the necessary button and add the text automatically. Instagram also offers Advanced Settings, where you can work on the alternative text.
Work on the closed captions
To make it helpful, it is important to use the highest quality services. This step is a perfect idea for those with hearing loss. If a person is deaf, English subtitles won’t be very helpful. But closed captions can change the situation and make the understanding better. There’s a difference between these two notions. Subtitles follow the speech and are focused on the words only. But closed captions are more versatile in sounds. Closed captions catch a wide range of sounds, such as a doorbell ringing, birds singing, and other background noises.
Who else may need help from the closed captions? Users without a fluent knowledge of the language would much appreciate the effort. By following the captions, it is easier to learn the language and follow the natural flow of information. In some cases, you don’t even need to work on the closed captions. They are fully available on certain platforms. If you post videos on Facebook or YouTube, you should only click on the button to add the captions. When a company offers the content transcribed to disabled users, it makes it more accessible to everyone.
Don’t use custom fonts that often
People with disabilities use specific assisting technologies to be able to read the content online. When the tool experiences a specific customized font, you can’t get the proper transcription of the sentence. It is difficult for disabled people to catch the information when it’s written in bold, italics, or with the help of other unusual fonts.
Work on the hashtags
A lot of people are using screen readers to help them get information online. And when a screen reader comes across the hashtags, it will most likely perceive the content as several letters rather than full words. But you can change it easily. If you capitalize the words, your hashtags will be more accessible to disabled users. It is also a nice choice for people with dyslexia.
Emojis aren’t the best option
When posting some content, you may want to add a specific emoji to show your mood and make the text more entertaining. But the thing is that emojis can be quite distracting for people with disabilities. The screen readers will try to explain what the emoji looks like in the middle of the regular sentence. And it is difficult to catch the sense of the sentence. How can you improve it? If you need an emoji, try to insert it at the end of the sentence. If you put it in between the words, it will make things sound even worse.
Make use of the contrast
The contrast in colors is a must. There are so many people with color blindness. They can’t differentiate most of the shades. And when you post a picture in the same color scheme, disabled people can’t get the sense of the picture. If you set high contrasts between the background and actual picture or text, it is easier to look at the screen and get the idea of it.
Final Thoughts
Posting content online is a responsible task. When you manage a business account, you can’t close your eyes to real problems. There are people with disabilities who may follow your page. And your task is to try to eliminate the difficulties with reading the content. These steps aren’t complicated. They take some time. But at the same time, they do a great job and help people who experience different issues with their health conditions.
