Ep 30. How accessible is our comms?

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Full Transcript

Hello and welcome to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works, with me, Emma Drake. Hi, everyone. Hope everyone is doing okay today. It’s one of the awareness weeks that we have here in the U.K. This week is Deafblind Awareness Week. Now, as a professional communicator, I think this is something that has always puzzled me, is how do I get better at communicating and making my material more accessible to a wider range of people. And it got me thinking about how accessible my podcast is and I read quite a lot of the information around the awareness week. And have some really great stories from people that really opened my eyes actually to how we have preconceived ideas that we will recognize if someone is deaf or blind, and we will see that, or we will be able to notice somehow. But, actually, that’s not always the case. And quite often, I think we can be overly sensitive to making too many things accessible.

But, actually, there are some basics we should probably be getting right. And some people are very good at this in the U.K. Some people are excellent at it and lots of really great work out there. But it made me really think about myself and educating myself more about this topic, on how to better understand and consider accessibility as a professional communicator. And there’s nearly 15 million people in the U.K. that have problems with their sight, their hearing, or both. And it’s inevitable that some of these people will be in our networks and the may well be customers. As I said, it can be hidden from our view and not really apparent. So how do we make sure that we are being an inclusive as we can be with our communication material? Lie I said, there’s some really simple and inexpensive things that we can do, actually, to make all our activities and communication more attractive and inclusive to people who have sight or hearing loss alongside other challenges, such as reading or dyslexia, for example.

Sometimes, for example, we think audio is all about getting to the right people with our message. As a medium, as professional communicators, we often think it’s a really good way for reaching people. And that’s absolutely true. But it’s also a very accessible format for lots of people, for varying disabilities or challenges in their life. So I ask and I uncovered today, especially now with so much business being conducted online, how are we really making sure our business communication is as accessible as it can be? So let’s dive in. So how many emails do you see with all the emojis, and capitals, and click here in big text? I don’t know about you, but I get loads on a daily basis. Well, whilst this may be fast becoming a great marketing tactic to get people’s attention, it isn’t actually very accessible to a large number of people, as it turns out.

Emma Drake:
PDFs are also very hard for screen readers, which is an app that helps people with visual impairment to read a computer screen. Sometimes they also use to translate to audio as well. But it’s not impossible for them to be read. But they do have to go through checks before a screen reader can even access them. And how many PDF downloads do you have on your website and are they accessible? And I have my hand up here, too, as I currently have free downloads that are PDFs, and I’m currently going through the process of checking them with a screen reader app. I’m going to put some links at the bottom of this episode with some helpful signposting for things I think will be useful, if you want to know more about some of the things I’m talking about today.

So I got asked by a client recently to provide accessible format material. So I had to do a little research myself and update my knowledge. Now, I’m not professing seem to be the expert here today. Okay. Quite the opposite. I am still learning myself. Every day’s a school day, as they say. But I had a little headstart possibly, as I did do some work for the U.K. government for a long while and, amongst other things, was responsible for publishing to the .gov.U.K. website. I actually had access to the number 10 home page, but that’s another story for another day. But because of that, I became very familiar with the guidance at that time, around how to make web-based pages and web-based materials and documents as accessible and easy to read as they can be. And there’s lots of best practice work carried out by central and local government in this area, in the U.K. Some of the best, I think, in lots of areas.

So a big shout out to the public sector, comms peeps over here in the U.K. So how many times are you asked by your clients, or do you ask yourself, how accessible is this material I’m producing? And be honest. Probably not every time, right? So I did a little research of my own, as I said, I do want to update and improve my own knowledge, and I’m sharing that with you today. I’m based in the U.K., so I’ve based this around U.K. English just for today. But lots of elements can be taken away for other language preferences, as they’re about delivery and implementation. (silence).

Here are three simple things we can do with our communication that are fairly simple to implement. Number one. Reduce the need for alternative format versions. Okay. That’s just about keeping it simple. So writing clear English. Sounds obvious, but we all make this mistake, no doubt. And there’s lots of slang now, especially around social media posts and social media marketing. Be as concise as possible, like short sentences that get to the point quickly. And design it to be as legible as possible. For example, using 14 typeface rather than 12 or 11, which quite a lot of us default to. By doing these three simple things, the information will be more accessible to a greater number of people straight away and may reduce demand for alternative versions. This is a really cost- and time-efficient way of producing a popular alternative format, which will make your information instantly accessible to a large number of your audience.

However, people with some types of visual impairments, things like learning disabilities, dexterity or literacy difficulties like dyslexia, are likely to have difficulty accessing information in written text at all, even in the largest font size. So we, therefore, need to consider alternative formats that meet their needs. In addition to making our initial document more accessible. Maybe even thinking about alternatives to publications, completely, film, video, SMS, et cetera. Now, audio is a really popular format for lots of reasons, as I said. I’ve talked in previous episodes about the rise of audio and audio technology in the home, such as Amazon Alexa and other audio devices, which have made people’s lives with vision impairment or any kind of reading difficulty able to hear everyday information, such as simple instructions, access information like news and weather reports and listen to audio books.

So it’s made all of that so much easier, but I’m conscious that not everyone wants to or can be comfortable with an audio format. So I transcribe my podcast episodes and I put those in the web pages, as you will have seen. Now, I’ve some work to do here with headings and subheadings, as there could be better for a screen reader. For example, using proper headings, not just bold text. Recognized headings that the screen reader will pick up, like H1, H2, so that everything can be accessed a little more easily. But with the transcripts actually being web-based and part of the page, this makes them automatically more friendly than a PDF, for example. As people can choose to use the zoom function, adjust the text or the contrast using screen-based tools, like voiceover on most Macs or PCs are standard now.

So number two is about targeting people with particular needs. So as you know, I’m a huge advocate of researching your audience and understanding their needs. And guess what researching your audience would also help you best meet their needs in this instance too. So think about, is your campaign specifically targeted at people with needs or do you know there will be a high proportion of people with a particular need in your audience. Think about city-wide campaigns or if you’re targeting very large geographies as well. Think about the diversity within that group. Some formats will suit one type of need more than other. For example, and it’s just a really basic example. There are lots and lots of examples. So visual impairment could be audio, could be braille, could be an app called MOON, could be the telephone, could be large print. Learning disabilities and literacy difficulties could be the audio, could be an easy-read app, Makaton, another one, or film. And hearing, so the British sign language, subtitling, texts, phone, SMS, and a web as well.

You should also consider any preferences your target audience may have for receiving information as part of this. Now, we do this as a job. This is something I advocate is making sure you’re giving people the right content in the right way. And this is really what struck me today, is actually we need to broaden that and consider preferences for receiving information based on needs. For example, younger deaf people may respond better to SMS than older deaf people, just for example. I also think too often we think the public sector or government are the only ones providing material and in these formats or are the only ones responsible for doing so. But, for example, I work in construction and property a lot. So this has got me thinking about all those public consultations from private sector. Have they really thought about major infrastructure consultations, for example? And the availability of consultation boards tend to be PDFs online. Are they screen reader compatible? Probably not. Just offering an alternative format I don’t think is really where we should be. I think we should be first devising the most accessible format and going from there.

Moving onto the third one is alternative text for images and subtitles. So if you’re using images, we need to make sure we’re providing something called alternative text, which describes the image. And you can right click on an image, any image in a document, and select A-L-T, alt text, to describe an added description of what the image is. Now, this helps people who can’t see the screen or document understand what’s important and what the image or visual represents. So the screen reader will pick that up, for example, or the app they’re using. It means the screen reader can sound out the word. Now, we should be doing this. It should be standard, right? And you will see now that social media platforms, in particular, I’ve seen it on LinkedIn. When you add an image, it does ask you to provide alt text. So let’s all try and make sure we’re always doing that. And I’m guilty too. Sometimes I skip that step. I’m not going to lie, but I think it’s something I will be trying to do more of.

As I said, this applies to social media as well. And in particular for using graphs, make sure this information is written content as well. And if you’re using a photograph or other image to demonstrate a point or reinforce a point, absolutely make sure you’ve used alternative text. Now, a little note on subtitles here as well. I still see lots of video without subtitles, and this is something I’d like to think I’m pretty good on. And I do find sometimes if you do a quick live or pop in to some of the social media platforms, in particular, there’s no built-in subtitles or it’s very difficult to find and integrate. So if you want to add a short clip on LinkedIn or your company website, you need to provide captions that accurate accurately reflect that content.

If you upload a video from YouTube, it automatically provides captions, for example, but you will need to check that these are accurate and they’re not always. I use something called Wave. You might see my audiograms when I make social media posts based on a short clip from my podcast and it, automatically, I clicked subtitles and it makes the subtitles and it doesn’t always translate the words. I’m not too picky about that, actually, but maybe I should be. I don’t mind the odd kind of mistake, but done is better than perfect and all that. But actually they could do with being really accurate, because obviously some people will be looking to engage with that video only using subtitles and actually quite a lot of people listening without sound anyway. So it’s pretty good practice. People with voiceover app as well will read the captions. So make making sure that we’ve just got that written content in there as well. And they should be standards plain and simple, I think. And I think Facebook and LinkedIn should add them automatically for their live video functions.

So, finally, a few other points to consider. Bullets. Always use standard bullets and recognized headers, such as H1, H2, et cetera. Blank space in documents. Don’t page down or leave too much space, as this registers as a click here on some screen readers. Colors can make text images and texts easier to stand out, but if you use poor choice of contrast colors, these can actually make texts very difficult to read on a screen and in print, actually. So hyperlinks is the other one. When you hyperlink to something, make sure the group of words in the link accurately describe the destination and make sense as a standalone phrase, rather than click here in bold font and then describe why. That really doesn’t work with screen readers.

So as Deafblind Awareness Week comes to a close here in the U.K., I’ve certainly updated my knowledge this week and I’ve really enjoyed researching how I can improve myself and I hope of not only raise a little awareness through my social media post this week of a condition that affects millions of people here in the U.K., but it also acts as an important reminder to keep things simple and be clear and concise, whilst also trying to always consider the end user of our content, not just for the words we choose to connect with them from a marketing point of view, but the format we share it in and how we present those words. Maybe you’ve had some aha moments, too, listening to this podcast today about how your content currently is or isn’t as accessible as it could be. And maybe you’re going to be making some changes yourself.

I have some work to do, I think, to bring my own content and marketing communication up to the standard I would like it to be from an accessibility perspective. Albeit, I am making steps in the right direction, hopefully. So what about you? Do you have any further tips or links? Maybe you can share them with me over social media. I’d love to hear from you. There were some links in my show notes, signposting to the various things I’ve talked about today. So I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time. So, finally, thank you for listening to this episode of Communications Strategy That works. Don’t forget to check my show notes for those links that I mentioned. And I’d really love it if you would subscribe to my podcast and leave me a review. And also if you think there’s someone that could benefit from listening to this podcast, please share this within your networks. So I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time.