Tips for Adopting an Accessible Web Content Strategy

Posted by: Natalya Minkovsky, Director of Strategy & User Experience Jun 09, 2010 0 Comments

One of my favorite content strategy blogs, the Content Wrangler, recently stated the case for adopting an “accessible content strategy.”

For those of us who work with the government, web content accessibility is not an option—it’s a must have. Rock Creek has project management and quality control processes we follow to deliver websites that are compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. And although web developers shoulder a lot of the responsibility for compliance, content strategists and writers play a big role as well.

At the recent Gov 2.0 Expo, I got the opportunity to ask W3C’s Judy Brewer, director of the Web Accessibility Initiative, what those of us who plan and create content can do better when it comes to creating accessible web content.

Her answer? Create a basic “guide to accessibility” for your content developers, as well as templates for different types of content your team creates. Guidelines and templates can help ensure that no matter who’s developing content, they’re taking accessibility into account. It also creates consistency for things like alt tags, video transcripts, error messages, and other types of content that’s needed for accessibility.

So what kinds of content should be considered in an accessibility guide? Here are just a few examples:

• Words. Keep them as simple and clear as possible. Using plain language guidelines will help make your content more accessible for everyone, not just people with disabilities.
• Videos. If your content includes videos, you have to decide if the videos will be captioned or if you will provide transcripts instead. Either way, you will need to transcribe the audio and describe any action that’s taking place on screen. If embedding YouTube videos is part of your content strategy, keep in mind that the default YouTube player is not fully accessible to people using certain assistive technologies, so consider your audiences when choosing a video player.
• Podcasts and other audio. Like videos, these should be transcribed for a text alternative. Don’t forget to include descriptions of sounds in addition to transcribing what’s said.
• Photos and graphics. Has someone written alt tags? There should be a text equivalent for every non-text element on your website. For complex graphics, longer descriptions may be needed.
• Multimedia, animation, etc. Like photos and graphics, multimedia presentations—online learning modules, for example—and animation should have an equivalent alternative.
• PDFs. If your website includes PDF downloads, then those documents need to be prepared with accessibility in mind. Photos, tables, charts, and other visuals will need alt tags; the PDF should include author information; and longer documents will need bookmarked navigation. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post all about accessible PDFs by Z. McHattie.

This list is just a start. Web accessibility affects a broad range of users, from people with auditory, visual, cognitive, and physical disabilities to older adults. And disabilities themselves are diverse—what works for one visually impaired person will not work for another.

And we haven’t even started talking about mobile web.

Whether you’re leading a team of content developers or you’re a team of one, get familiar with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 techniques and start incorporating them into your content planning and development process. If you’re hiring someone to plan and write your content, ask about their processes—from content strategy through development and testing—to make sure your website content is accessible to as many visitors as possible.

I’ll leave you with this thought: Creating accessible websites shouldn’t be something you do just because the government tells you to. As content strategist Richard Ingram writes in a recent blog post on the subject of accessibility, “Whether it’s buying what you sell, making a donation, or simply getting in touch, creating content that is accessible to people with disabilities will allow more people the opportunity to interact, enjoy, and be stimulated by your web presence.”

Many thanks to our accessibility guru Z. McHattie for contributing to this blog post.

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Natalya Minkovsky

Director of Strategy & User Experience

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