How do I encourage my organisation to create accessible content?
Annie Mannion | 20 Jul 2023Your organisation's accessibility skills will always benefit from a boost, and ensuring your content is accessible will generate major business benefits for you too. Check out eight resources to help you create accessible content.
What do we mean by 'content'?
It's everything from the words on your website, your internal comms, videos and podcasts you produce, posts you share on social media, presentations to your team and downloadable PDFs.
So, are you and your organisation creating and sharing content accessible to all?
If the answer is "I'm not sure" instead of a resounding "Yes!", then our free resources and low-cost training services will help you to improve how you generate content to ensure it's accessible.
What are the benefits of accessible content?
Not only does providing content in multiple formats help disabled people access different options to consume information in the way they need it, accessible content is also one of the key metrics measured by Google, so by following best practices for providing accessible content, you boost your search engine optimisation and thus your brand awareness and reputation.
So, this summer, take some time to learn where you can make small steps or big strides in building your accessible content expertise.
8 resources to help you create accessible content
Access our Accessible Content Resources Hub for more information and check out the 8 highlighted resources below.
1. Download our free factsheets, including Easy Read versions
To be truly accessible, to be read and understood by as wide an audience as possible – including, for example, people with visual impairments, dyslexia or learning difficulties – your document also has to work well with screen reading software. Read our factsheet Creating Accessible Documents to learn about the basics to remember for creating and editing documents.
You can also download Easy Read versions of many of our most popular factsheets, too.
2. Watch our webinar playback: How to do accessible social media
You may spend ages crafting perfect social media messages, but are your posts accessible to all? Learn how to make your social media channels work harder and meet the needs of all users.
Watch this webinar recording to learn some simple things to remember when using social channels including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more, so you can share information accessible to all.
Download the webinar transcript.
3. Attend our Creating Accessible Documents training course
In this online course you will learn about styles and templates, and how to fix common issues to create accessible documents. It's perfect for designers, editorial staff and content creators, trainers and academics.
The next live course is coming up in October, or access a recording of the session on demand.
4. Highlight the need for content training to your managers
You may already be aware of the numerous benefits of ensuring accessible content, but are your managers listening? If you need buy-in for rolling out training for staff across your organisation, then the highlighted results from our Attitudes to Digital Accessibility report will help you emphasise to your senior managers the need for developing accessibility skills.
The results show significant differences in how well individuals feel supported by their organisations in developing their digital accessibility skills. Download the Attitudes to Digital Accessibility 2022 survey report to share in your organisation.
5. Offer eLearning about accessibility for all your staff
Get value for money by offering all staff access to our cost-effective flexible online modules to help your teams create accessible content including videos, PDFs, images, Word documents, PowerPoint, emails, spreadsheets and more. Courses are available online, anytime.
6. Use guidelines documents
Written by our expert consultants, these guidelines are perfect for anyone who creates content for your website or digital platforms. Get access to the guidelines on topics including Accessible Social Media, Content Creation, Documents, and PDFs.
7. Watch our free accessible content playlist
Access our free archive of useful webinar recordings and content training sessions to view at your leisure and pick up valuable accessibility knowledge.
8. Improve your content by using personas
Use personas when creating content to give you an insight into how people with a range of access needs use products and services, and shape your content accordingly. Check out our broad range of personas.
Looking for help? Speak to our experts
Great value: get 10 courses for the price of 8Save on the year ahead by purchasing 10 accessibility and inclusion training courses for the price of 8, with our bundle deal.
You don’t have to book them all right now – you have until the end of 2023 to book all 10. You can also download a training brochure to browse what’s available and share with your team.
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