A ‘Quick’ Checklist for Content Creators with Little Time: How to Make Your Content Readable for More People and Comply with Web Guidelines

Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

Most people think it takes years to learn digital accessibility.

But what you need to know as a content creator I can explain in 30 seconds.

A quick explanation of:

• Text
• Images
• Media

Let’s get started…

Text

• Give pages a descriptive title
• Use descriptive headings
• Mark up headings using a heading element
• Mark up lists using a list element
• Mark up tables using table elements
• Provide link text that describes the destination (so not “Read more…”)
• Don’t rely on color, shape, or location alone to convey information
• Indicate the language of the page
• Indicate the language of text in a different language

Images

• Provide informative images with a text alternative
• Don’t provide a text alternative for decorative images
• Describe the purpose of clickable images in the text alternative
• Don’t use images of text

Media

• Provide a short text alternative for media
• Provide a transcript for audio and video content
• Provide good quality captions
• Try to avoid using audio description

By using this checklist, you can avoid 99% of accessibility errors.

Save the checklist somewhere so you encounter it when creating your content.

Small disclaimer: This checklist only includes the points that I assume are relevant to you as a content creator. There is more to checking your entire website for accessibility. But those are mostly points for your technical partner.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog