Accessible social media
Many of us use social media daily, and it’s important to consider how to make our content and messages usable for more than just an abled audience. This article will list a few techniques to help improve the accessibility of the social media you post.
Add image descriptions
Image descriptions give extra context for the content and purpose of an image. They also allow users who are using a screen reader to understand the image.
Add video captions and transcripts
If you’re publishing a video, adding captions and providing a transcript helps people who have different abilities for eyesight and audio processing. Captions and transcripts also make videos much more approachable, understandable, and shareable.
Use plain language
Try to avoid using overly-complicated language and special acronyms unless they’re specifically suited for the audience you’re trying to communicate with.
Use inclusive language
Avoiding the use of language that is exclusive, potentially disparaging, or marginalizing to specific groups of people can make people feel unnecessarily uncomfortable or unsafe. Focusing on using language that is actively inclusive reduces the chances of offending or harming the people that might read your posts.
Capitalize hashtags
Your hashtags should be capitalized, especially if they have more than one word in them. This helps screen reader software pronounce them correctly, and makes them easier to read in general.
Be careful with emojis
Since they’re symbols, emojis can be interpreted in a lot of different ways; they also render differently depending on what platform you’re on, so there’s no guarantee they look exactly like what you expect them to. Emojis can also be difficult for screen readers. If there are a lot of emojis in a message, the screen reader will read all of their names, which may be borderline incomprehensible (or at least very annoying).
Avoid odd text
Nonstandard capitalizations (such as all-caps or “spongebob case”) can make it difficult to read the words you’ve written. Similarly, abusing Unicode for things like “zalgo” text or other unexpected usage can make it hard to decipher what you’re trying to say. ASCII art can look nice, but it can also be a pain for screen readers to parse.
Use content warnings
If you’re sharing content that could be upsetting for some readers, it’s best to include warnings for that content so that they can choose whether or not they want to engage with it.