Transcript of video:
(00:01) Social Media Posts and Accessibility
This video is about social media posts and how to make them accessible. Everyone should be able to participate, engage, and interact with social personalities. We know that some disabilities are visible and some are not. So, we want to make sure that our social media posts are accessible for all.
(00:21) Key Components of Accessible Social Media Posts
The components that we could make sure are accessible with social media posts are the language we use, the hashtags, providing image descriptions, captions for audio and video, and we'll talk about emojis.
(00:21) Plain Language
So, the first thing I want to talk about is plain language. It's a way to communicate to help ensure that information is clear, concise, and easy to understand for all audiences.
(00:44) Goal of Plain Language
The goal is to make written or spoken content accessible so that people can find what they need, understand what they find, and use the information to meet their needs. It is not dumbing down your information, sacrificing precision, or it's not even an automatic process. It has to be considered for your audience.
(01:05) Who Plain Language Helps
It's crucial for many readers. Almost one half of adult Americans struggle to read. So plain language can help them decipher that information. This applies to readers with cognitive issues or vision, language barriers, low education level, rushed readers, or situational stress.
(01:30) How to Write in Plain Language
So to write in plu language, you want to consider your audience. Use simple words and sentences and positive language. You want to avoid complex and overly academic language, jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms because not everybody knows what those things are.
(01:30–01:53) Plain Language Example
So, let's look at the sentence. Is this plain language? The educator elucidated the methodology for resolving the mathematical equation in a sequential manner.
How about this? The teacher explained how to solve the math problem step by step. Clear language, plain language.
(01:53) Hashtag Accessibility
Okay, we want to talk about hashtag accessibility. What this means is that users, including those with disabilities or using screen readers, can easily read, understand, and interact with your hashtags.
(02:16) Why Hashtags Matter and What Can Go Wrong
They're powerful for conversation promotion, and expanding reach. Sometimes people use hashtags almost as a filter, as a group, >> [snorts] >> um, as a search tool, but they can also be confusing.
So, what are the barriers for users with disabilities? Hashtags can be a barrier because of they're all lowercase letters. They are too complex. They're too lengthy or they're irrelevant. They don't apply to the content.
(02:38) Camelcase Hashtags
So, we want to recommend using camelc case hashtags. With camelc case, you capitalize each word within the phrase so that it indicates it's a distinct word.
(03:03) Benefits of Camelcase and Examples
The benefits of camelcase. So, look at that word # camelcase. The C's are capitalized so you know they're separate words. It improves readability for everyone. Screen readers can distinguish each word and it will pronounce each word separately so the hashtag is pronounced correctly and it makes it clearer and easier to understand.
Here's some examples. The ones on the left all lowercase. The ones on the right we've capitalized some of the words. Super easy to read. Definitely.
(03:23) Adding Image Descriptions
So, we want to also talk about adding image descriptions. If you're including images in your social media posts, you want to improve uh include that alternative text. So, it can be a short description. If it's a very complex image, you might need a longer description, it could just be decorative, or it might be functional.
So, in the case of functional on a website, that's different than a social media post. So, we won't go into that.
(03:47) Shortened Links in Social Posts
We also want to talk about shorten links. So, if you're including a URL in your social media post, we encourage you to use short links because they're friendly to screen readers. They can have a descriptive back half.
We don't want to say click here. And we don't want that really super long Google doc. And if you are including a URL, put the link at the end of your post.
(04:28) URL Shortener Options
So use shortened URLs like the bit. lys or you can use tiny URL aly but also um on OD when you're logged in you we have a URL shortener too and it's kind of down towards the bottom of that left menu.
(04:28–04:53) Emojis and Screen Readers
We love emojis. They can help make a point. They can help lighten up a post. Things like that. But don't overuse them because a screen reader is going to read these emojis as laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing.
(04:53) Closing Reminder
So, circling back, accessibility leads to the opportunity for all individuals to use the same materials, the same technologies at the same time with equal ease of use, and that includes social media post.
Don't forget to visit our ESU10 accessibility resources hub at a11y.esu10.org.