Accessibility

Accessibility in publishing means making your content available to as wide an audience as possible. This means organising your content, and using the right level of language and explanation, for your intended audience.

Accessibiilty can also mean something more specific. There are international standards relating to the accessibility of online content – see the Web Accessibility Initiative website. This requires content to be accessible to anyone using a screen reader or braille interface. While intended to meet needs of people with visual impairment, screen readers have a much wider usage. It is good practice to make content web accessible.

If you use the Microsoft Office suite, accessibility is straight forward. Right click on any table/figure/image and add Alt-text – add a description in one or two sentences explaining what it is (table/figure/image) and a description of the key content. To check accessibility, select the review tab, then select check accessibility. This identifies accessibility issues in your document and suggests ways to resolve them. It takes some practice, but over time it will teach you how to present content in more accessible ways.

Other tips to make content more accessible include: minimising use of capitals and italics (both harder to read), aligning text left (rather than full), using sans serif fonts, using a careful balance of headings and white space, and ensuring there is enough contrast in colours used. See also presentation matters and when to use/not use italics.

Neither Word or PDF documents are fully accessible, which is why government agencies often publish both Word and PDF versions of documents online.

In Australia, Vision Australia provide some excellent training, resources and digital access services – see their website. Other examples include guidance from the UK Government (see their website) and Microsoft (see their website).