Accessibility for content creators

Guidelines for creating inclusive content

The number of people who experience barriers to accessing digital content is higher than you might expect.
 

About 1.3 billion people – or 16% of the global population – have a significant disability. Many more suffer from an impairment: 2.2 billion people are visually impaired while 1.5 billion live with a degree of hearing loss.

Nor are digital accessibility issues limited to people who are officially classed as disabled. While exact figures are difficult to find, research by Appt, an accessibility non-profit, found that almost half of all mobile phone owners enable at least one accessibility feature.

Making content compatible with digital assistive technology is a key part of delivering an inclusive digital experience. This includes technologies such as screen readers and speech recognition software.

Google takes accessibility seriously, too. While not a direct ranking factor, many of the best practices of accessibility overlap with those of UX and SEO. So making your content accessible helps Howden websites to avoid being penalised in Google search.

To create inclusive content that satisfies both users and search engines, you must follow the POUR principles.

What are the POUR principles?

The POUR principles are the foundation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the internationally recognised standards for making web content accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities.

POUR stands for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.

Each principle covers a different aspect of accessible design, helping you to create content that’s genuinely inclusive.

Let’s explore what each principle means.

Perceivable

‘Perceivable’ means involves adjusting text, images, video, and other multimedia elements so that everyone can interpret them. This includes presenting media in alternative formats, such as video transcripts and alt text for images.

At least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment, while more than 1.5 billion people live with hearing loss. This means that many people can be excluded from accessing visual and auditory content.

Operable

The operable principle is about accommodating people who access content through non-traditional methods. 

Many users rely solely on a keyboard, with no mouse. This includes visually impaired users – who can’t see an on-screen cursor – and mobility impaired users who struggle to control a mouse.

Accommodating keyboard navigation is a key part of making your site operable. But bear in mind that many users rely on a variety of other input methods, including voice commands and eye-tracking devices.

Understandable

‘Understandable’ is all about making content simple to read and navigate.

This is particularly important for users with cognitive impairments. However, everyone benefits from an easy-to-understand website.

As a content creator, you have a significant role to play in making your content understandable. This includes the language you use and how you deploy on-page elements like headings and links.

Robust

The robust principle is of secondary importance for content creators, as it is largely out of your direct control.

It’s up to developers to implement the technical processes to meet evolving accessibility needs. However, you should keep up to date with the latest web standards and technological developments.

For a site to be robust, it must be interpretable by a range of assistive technologies – both now and in the future. This means that accessibility isn’t a one-and-done achievement; it’s a process.

How to create accessible content

The POUR principles provide a framework for understanding what accessible web content looks like.
 

In this guide, we’ll explore practical actions you can take as a content creator to meet each of the principles.

The importance of scannable headings

Informative headings will help you to achieve the understandable principle of POUR. 

Headings should be short, high-level summaries of what to expect in an article or section.

If a reader skips ahead through a page, the headings should be clear enough that the reader knows what to expect in the section. Important keywords should be frontloaded at the beginning of the heading, making them easier to scan.

Headings should be action orientated. That means they should tell the user what they’ll learn in the section below the heading or what action they should take.

Use HTML headings correctly

HTML headings are a key part of making content operable and understandable. Tagged with a piece of code, HTML headings can be interpreted by assistive technologies to tell users which information is the most important.

HTML headings can help users:

• Navigate a page according to its headings
• Listen to a list of all headings
• Jump to a desired heading to start reading from
• Skip the repeated blocks of content like headers, menus, and sidebars

Using HTML headings correctly is also a fundamental aspect of SEO. Search engine bots use HTML headings to identify the topic of a page and understand the relationship between sections – both of which are key ranking signals.

There’s a logic to HTML headings. To help users and search engines understand how your page is structured, you must follow it.

1. Start with an H2 for the main content sections: This is your default heading that signals a new idea.
2. Use an H3 for subsections that fall directly under an H2: Rather than introducing a new idea, an H3 explores in more detail an idea you’ve already introduced under an H2.
3. Use bold formatting for a subsection of an H3: A subsection of an H3 breaks the original idea down even further. In our CMS, use standard text with bold formatting.
4. Introduce a new idea with an H2: Returning to the default heading level makes it clear that a new, distinct section has begun.

Importantly, you must never skip heading levels, such as using an H3 before an H2. This can confuse users and damage SEO performance.

Ensure meaningful link and button text

You can make your content more operable by using meaningful link and button text.

Screen reader users may choose to navigate the content of a page by tabbing through links and bypassing other content.

Each link or button should have informative text which describes its purpose without relying on the surrounding text.

Effective link text means that the user knows:

• Which action they need to take
• Where they’ll be directed to

To do this, avoid vague phrases like ‘click here’. Instead, use action phrases like:

• Sign up now
• Download brochure
• Get in touch

Screen readers inform users when they’re hovering over a link. So there’s no need to include language such as “link to” or “click the link” within link text.

Clear and concise writing is essential

Writing as simply as possible is fundamental to satisfying the understandable principle of POUR.  

The average reading age varies from country to country, but it tends to be somewhere within the early secondary school level range.

With that in mind, consider that the reading age of cognitively impaired users may be considerably lower. Readers with cognitive or visual impairments may struggle with dense text, particularly when it’s heavily laden with jargon, acronyms, and cliches.

By writing simply and clearly, your audience can focus on learning rather than trying to decipher your prose.

Write in plain language

You should use everyday words that everyone understands. For example, say:

• ‘Buy’ instead of ‘purchase’
• ‘Meet’ instead of ‘rendezvous’
• ‘Help’ instead of ‘assist’
• ‘About’ instead of ‘approximately’

Users with cognitive impairments may struggle to understand complex, context-specific words. When you need to use jargon and technical terms, you should explain what it means.

Remove unnecessary words

An unnecessary word is any word that doesn’t add meaning. These include:

• Repetition
• Tautologies
• Phrases that could be a single word

By eliminating words that don’t add meaning, the point you’re making will come across more clearly.

Favour active voice

Active voice sentences are easier to process than passive voice sentences. This is because active voice places the subject before the verb, providing a clear chain of events. Active voice sentences also tend to be more concise. For example:

Passive voice: The broker was acquired by Howden yesterday.

Active voice: Howden acquired the broker yesterday.

Frontload key information

The main point of a sentence should be at the beginning. This reduces cognitive load, making information easier to scan and process. Frontloading also applies to:

• Headings
• Paragraphs
• Lists

Use lists

Lists are an effective way of organising information, making it easier to read and understand. Moreover, lists break up blocks of text, creating more white space on the page. This reduces cognitive load and makes content easier to understand for skim readers.

Whenever there’s an opportunity to present your content as a list, you should take it. Good situations to use a list include:

• Grouping related items
• Outlining steps in a process e.g. instructions
• Showing an order or hierarchy
• Emphasising key points

For more information about writing for skim readers, see our guide How to structure scannable content.

Use acronyms sparingly

Acronyms are unusual for being made up entirely of capital letters. This makes acronyms more challenging to read and potentially unclear for some readers.

In general, you should spell out acronyms in full upon first use to avoid any uncertainty. This is particularly important when the acronym describes something internal – such as a team or product name – as these acronyms are almost certain to be unfamiliar to the reader. However, there’s no need to spell out well-known acronyms – like the BBC and NATO – as they are more familiar than the full phrase.

Acronyms can pose a particular challenge for screen reader users. A screen reader may read an acronym as a single word when it should in fact be read letter by letter, such as the NHS. Alternatively, acronyms pronounced as a single word – like NASA – may be read out letter by letter, making the meaning less clear. As far as possible, then, use acronyms sparingly. Find an alternative way of describing what you’re referring to such as ‘the health service’ or the ‘space agency’.

Avoid cliches

A cliché is an overused stock phrase where the original meaning has become unclear over time. For example:

• Low hanging fruit
• Think outside the box
• Push the envelope

Apart from lacking originality, cliches make your writing less accessible. Many cliches can’t be understood literally. This makes them challenging for some users with cognitive impairments.

To make your content more accessible for all users, follow these tips:

• Be specific: Use direct language backed by precise details.  
• Think originally: Putting ideas into your own words helps you to control the meaning.  
• Focus on clarity: Simple language beats flowery prose.

Get alt text right to avoid Google penalties

Part of satisfying the perceivable principle of POUR involves using alt text for images.

Imagery is a crucial aspect of effective website design. However, you risk excluding visually impaired users, as well as those who struggle to process imagery. To create an inclusive experience for these users, you need to use alt text.

Alt text is used to describe images within digital content. Alt text is particularly helpful for screen reader users – the screen reader converts the alt text into audio or braille, making otherwise hidden visual information accessible. Alt text is also helpful for sighted users when imagery fails to load.

There are two situations where you should use alt text:

• Describing meaningful images: A meaningful image conveys important information that isn’t available in the text. This could be an original image, or media such as tables and infographics. Descriptive alt text allows screen readers users to access this important visual information.
• Marking an image as decorative: A decorative image is purely aesthetic – it doesn’t add information. This includes stock images sourced from sites such as Unsplash. Decorative images don’t need detailed alt text. But they should be marked with an empty alt attribute (alt=””). This tells the screen reader to skip over the image, reducing unnecessary clutter.

Follow these tips for writing effective alt text:

• Be specific: Highlight the main reason why you chose an image and what you hope to convey. Include specifics like names and locations.
• Consider the context: The surrounding text is likely to affect which parts of the image are most important to describe – focus on the key details.
• Be concise: Limit alt text to 125 characters to prevent the text being cut off by a screen reader. Aim for a short and meaningful description comprising of a single sentence.
• Avoid redundancy: Don’t repeat information that’s already available in the surrounding text as users will get the same content twice. For the same reason, don’t write ‘image of’ – screen readers automatically indicate when something is an image.

Important accessibility factors in multimedia content

Another way of making content perceivable is to provide alternative formats.

Some disabilities make certain media formats inherently inaccessible. For example, a video on its own isn’t much use to a blind person; nor would a deaf person get much value out of a podcast.

Many users can also experience a situational disability – a temporary impediment caused by an environment, such as being unable to hear audio content on a loud train. Similarly, for reasons of politeness, a person may not want to play audio in public spaces.

You can make multimedia content perceivable to a wider audience by offering the same content in alternative formats.

Transcripts

A transcript is a text version of audio content, including dialogue and sound effects. For deaf users, a transcript allows them to perceive purely audio content, such as podcasts, as well as non-visual video information. Visually impaired users can also access transcripts through screen readers. In addition, some sighted users prefer reading to watching a video.

Making a video transcript has benefits beyond accessibility. The text can be crawled by search engines, helping to improve SEO performance.

Closed captions

Closed captions are like an in-video transcript. They should capture all audio content, including video and sound effects. But unlike a transcript, captions are synchronised with the video’s action. This allows deaf viewers (and those unable to hear the audio for whatever reason) to follow along with the video.