For people with visual impairments, “reading” websites and social media posts using an accessibility reader is even more complicated than for a person who has never used one would assume. That’s because only 3% of websites and 14% of posts are truly accessible.
Improving accessibility benefits all users. In the following lines follow tips for improving readability. These are small changes that have a big impact.
Important information inside the visualisation and out
Sometimes important business information is shared on social media in the form of a preview. But if the key message isn’t written in the text of the post, then readers of visually impaired people only read “visualisation – no accompanying text” and the information remains hidden to them.
Hashtags
Hashtags, which are used to track social media discussion on a topic, should generally be spelled out in a merged way. In order to improve readability, each word, although spelled in a merged way, should begin with a capital letter. This makes it easier for people and increases the likelihood that the message will be read and received.
Emojis
Emojis, the small pictures that depict emotions on social networks, are “read” descriptively by the accessibility reader. To improve the experience, it is recommended to place emojis at the end of a sentence or paragraph. This way, when the information is presented, it remains consistent rather than interrupted.
A series of emoticons also confuses readers and causes them to “speak” them rather haphazardly, which takes away from the power of the message.
Links
It is good practice to use descriptive links. This means limiting the use of buttons like “click here”. Alternatively, keywords can be spelled out on the button. For example, if a restaurant wants to direct customers to a sub-site on their page, they could name the button “learn more about our new menu”.
Formatting
Good formatting aids readability for both reader users and users who don’t need a reader. If there is a table of information, a better option for accessibility is to organize the columns vertically. This is because accesibility
readers read the information line by line, from left to right, and the visually impaired person has to remember the entire row of information. With the vertical arrangement, this is easier.
For forms, there should be no ‘required fields are marked in red’. A better option is to write “required field” on each such field, and additionally there can be a color distinction.
Video subtitles
Video subtitles help more than just the visually impaired. They also make the material more accessible for people whose native language is not the one of the video and those who find pronunciation of the speaker difficult. People who are watching the video in a setting where it is not possible to play the audio, or are surrounded by a lot of noise, subtitles are also a big help.
Improving the accessibility of content on websites and on social networks is beneficial for all users. Small efforts can lead to significant results.
