How can I make social media more accessible?

RNIB's accessible social media checklist has a list of prompts and reminders for you to refer to, to ensure that you’ve done everything you can do to make your content accessible to people with sight loss before publishing.

It isn’t an exhaustive list of accessibility hints and tips, but provides a good summary.

Image descriptions

  • I’ve written alt text for all images
  • In the copy, my image descriptions are written as: [Image description:…] on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
  • I’ve added image descriptions in the back end on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Threads
  • For any links that pull through an image, I have added alt text in the caption on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
  • My Instagram post is live! So I’ve manually added alt text in the back end

Audio

  • I’ve edited our audio clip so it’s a short, subtitled video

Copy

  • My hashtags are all in Camel Case and at the end of the copy
  • I used only one hashtag. But, uh oh, it would be good to use more for reach! I’ve only used 2-3 and I’ve added them to the end of the post
  • I’ve only used 1-2 emojis and I’ve checked their meaning in Emojipedia
  • I’ve tried not to use emoji’s for bullet points, but if I have, I’ve used the same one throughout my copy
  • I’ve shorted and personalised my links in bit.ly and only used one link, with any extra links going in the comments/follow-up tweets

Videos

  • My videos are subtitled with white text on a black background
  • My videos are audio led or audio described
  • I don’t think the audio description is clear enough, so I’ve also added a video description

Features (stories or polls)

  • I’ve checked the features I’m using are accessible
  • Where needed, I’ve added copy or descriptions to the features

Further Information

SCULPT is also a handy acronym to remember it stands for:

  • Structure (use heading styles)
  • Colour and contrast
  • Use of images
  • Links (hyperlinks)
  • Plain English
  • Table structure

you can find out more about SCULPT and other information on making digital accessible on the AbilityNet website.

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