Quick Tips for Making Your Content More Accessible
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash
In a fast-moving digital landscape where the diversity of content coincides with the diversity of the readership, it’s important to prioritize content accessibility. This includes the way you write the article, the way it’s structured and the technical aspects built into it to ensure that your news can reach a broad range of audiences, wherever they are and however they are accessing the content.
In this post, we will discuss two different types of accessibility in journalistic scenarios: content accessibility and reader accessibility.
Tips for Content Accessibility
These tips focus on the clarity and structure of your writing, which affect how well your message can be understood by a person (or AI), regardless of their background or knowledge of the topic. This type of accessibility benefits everyone, from a hurried reader skimming for key points to someone with a learning disability who may struggle with complex sentences or jargon.
When you write for clarity, you create a more welcoming and effective communication experience for all, a key to good journalism.
- Write for clarity first.
- Use plain language and avoid jargon, acronyms or hyper-technical terms. If you must use a technical term, define it the first time you use it.
- Stick to short sentences (15–20 words on average). Long, complicated sentences can be hard to follow and may cause a reader to lose the main point.
- Structure information clearly.
- Lead with the most important fact (the “inverted pyramid”). This classic journalistic structure ensures that even if a reader only gets through the first paragraph, they’ve received the core information. Place key details, like the 5 Ws, at the top.
- Use subheadings, bullet points and bolded key phrases to make the content scannable. These elements guide readers through the article and help them to quickly find the information they need.
- Add context and explain numbers.
- Replace phrases like “Q2 revenues grew 47%” with “Revenues grew 47% compared to last year, adding $2.1 million.”
- Don’t assume your readers have insider knowledge. Always explain the significance of data or trends.
Tips for Reader Accessibility
These tips, on the other hand, deal with the technical aspects of how content is delivered. It’s about ensuring your content can be consumed by people using a variety of technologies, such as screen readers, text-to-speech software or even a simple browser on a smartphone. This is crucial for people with visual impairments, motor disabilities or those who prefer to listen to content.
By considering readership accessibility, you remove technical barriers that could otherwise prevent a significant portion of your audience from engaging with your work.
- Consider readability tools.
- Aim for a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 8–10. This corresponds to a reading level that’s easily understood by most adults.
- Run drafts through tools like Grammarly for analysis and help to boost clarity.
- Provide multiple formats.
- Offer a text-only version. This can be as simple as making sure your blog post is available in a standard HTML format.
- Ensure PDFs are tagged and accessible. An untagged PDF is a blank slate to a screen reader, making it unusable for a visually impaired person.
- Make content accessible for text-to-speech readers.
- Write descriptive alt text for images. Alt text is what a screen reader reads aloud to describe an image. Make sure it’s clear, concise and descriptive as it provides context to the image for those who cannot see it.
- Avoid using “click here” language for links — anchor text should describe the destination (“Download the full report,” “View the image gallery,” etc.). This is not only good for accessibility but also for search engine optimization.
With these tips in mind, you will be able to both expand the scope of your audience and build trust with them. The easier the content flows, the more likely it is to be read, engaged with and shared by your audience.
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Caroline Gordon
Caroline is a highly outgoing Senior Content Editor for PR Newswire born and raised in Baltimore, MD. Caroline is a Randolph-Macon College graduate with a bachelor's degree in Political Science, Communication Studies and Religious Studies. She loves Solidcore, going to see new movies and traveling the world as much as possible.
