Are you wondering how you or your organization can make your social media more inclusive and accessible? You may have never considered social media as a part of your personal or organizational plan for inclusivity, and that's okay. Today is the perfect day to start.
These guidelines are rails intended to help you create social media content that is accessible to all people.
The Checklist
- Alternative Text Descriptions for Images — writing a good image description is like writing set or stage directions. If there is a human, what are they doing or feeling if it is important? Include that. Leave out describing where they are or what they are wearing unless it's important.
- Captioning of Videos — provide captions of the audio, either closed or open captions depending on the platform.
- Context for Animated GIFs — GIF format has no accessibility support on most social platforms. Never rely on conveying meaning through GIFs alone; write an image description.
- Emojis and Emoticons — use emojis in small amounts with spaces between them, and never rely on emojis to convey the entire meaning of a post.
- Language — avoid ableist language.
- Grammar Guidelines — write plainly, keep sentences short (around 20–25 words at most), and use simpler words to reduce ambiguity. Aim for a readability level of grade 8 or lower to meet WCAG standards.
- CamelCase Hashtags — capitalize each word in multi-word hashtags, e.g. #MadeInNewYork instead of #madeinnewyork.
- Freebies — for downloadable documents, use the accessibility tools built into Microsoft Office.
- Representation — represent people with all kinds of levels of ability, and highlight disability activists, writers, and artists.
- Avoid inspiration porn — ask who is telling the story, who it's targeted to, and whether it treats a disabled person's daily life as remarkable simply because they're disabled.
