5 Tips for Accessible Copywriting
Content accessibility advice for copywriters who care
Accessibility is the practice of writing, designing, and developing digital experiences that all people can access, regardless of any type of disability they have. Web content accessibility is specific to how accessible digital content is— which includes text, images, audio, or video content.
Although content is such a big part of what makes an experience accessible or not, it’s often overlooked in the publishing process. People often become copywriters through fields like marketing or sales, where opportunities to learn about accessibility are scarce. And when content is not accessible, it means that tons of people are excluded entirely from your marketing or web experiences.
The good news is that writing accessible copy is pretty easy with just a little bit of self-education. In this article, we’ll cover 5 guidelines for accessible copywriting to help you deliver more inclusive experiences.
1. Use plain language
Writing in plain language means that your content is easier to understand for everyone. Plain language doesn’t mean your content has to be boring, it just means that there’s no good reason to alienate people just so that your copy can sound smart. No one likes to be confused.
Guidelines for plain language:
Avoid using jargon words or terminology that your audience won’t understand. When using acronyms, spell them out the first time you use it.Avoid complex sentences. It’s usually unnecessary, and simple sentence structures are easier to understand.Don’t use metaphors or colloquial phrases, especially when writing for global audiences. These might not make sense to someone speaking English as a second language, or someone using Google translate on the page.Structure your content so that it’s easy to scan. Things like headers, subheads, bulleted lists, and white space make content more readable.When writing for the general public or broad audiences, an easy way to check for plain language is to use a tool Hemingway app, which scans and grades your content based on grade levels. This will help you avoid overly complex copy. You’ll know you’ve struck the perfect balance when you reach grade 6 or 7.
Now if you’re thinking to yourself,
“My readers are smarter than a 6th grader!”
Well, sure. But that’s not the point. Of course many of your readers are capable of reading more complex content, but most people don’t want to.
There are also lots of great resources available online for plain language, like this plain language checklist.
Plain language when writing for experts
If your audience is highly educated, or are subject-matter experts in the topic you’re writing about, some of the rules can be adjusted. For example, it might make sense to use industry terminology if you know your readers will be familiar with those terms. In these cases, it’s more important than ever to understand your audience and their knowledge level. Check out this guide on writing for domain experts from Nielsen Norman Group for more on this.
2. Add structure, space, and contrast
Structure your content so that it’s easy to scan by using headers, subheads, bulleted or numbered lists, and plenty of white space. Many writers, especially new writers who were trained academically, make the mistake of publishing long blocks of text. It’s important to understand that writing for the web is different than writing an academic essay or novel.
People reading content through a screen like to scan. There’s no reason to try to force people to read dense blocks of content. Most of the time, they simply won’t read long chunks of text.
As a real world example, think about privacy policies. When was the last time you read all “privacy policy” or “terms and conditions” page from start to finish? Probably never. In fact, most people would rather check a box agreeing to a policy they have never read rather than read it, because they are so long and cumbersome.
You should also make sure that your text and background have good contrast, at least a 3:1 ratio. Good contrast allows more people to access and understand your content. Often times, writers think that “the visual stuff” is a designers job—and it is. But if you’re self publishing or working with a junior level designer, they might not know about accessibility. Writers can make a big impact on web accessibility by acting as a champion for the user through accessible content.
3. Write accessible hyperlinks
One of the most common accessibility mistakes I see is hyperlink text. It’s most common in emails or blog posts, but can happen anywhere on the web. To make your hyperlinks or buttons accessible, they need to make sense on their own. Imagine if someone only read the hyperlink text: would they understand where that link would take them? If the answer is no, the hyperlink is not accessible. Single words or very short phrases are basically meaningless, so as a general rule you should avoid linking single words.
Examples of inaccessible hyperlinks:
click here
read more
here
this link
The problem with these hyperlinks is that they lack context and don’t make sense without the surrounding text. When your link lacks context, it can be frustrating for people using screen readers or other types of assistive technology. Screen readers are tools that audibly read text and images to visually impaired users. Technology is amazing.Let’s consider a few examples that all try to say the same thing, but have varying degrees of accessibility.
Bad (not accessible at all):
If you want to learn more about web content accessibility, read our article about it <here>.
Nope! That is tiny and hard to click on, and there’s no context if you only read “here.” We can do better!
Better (almost accessible):
If you want to learn more about web content accessibility, <read this article>.
Not bad! Now at least we know the link takes us to an article. That’s nice.
Best (accessible hyperlink example):
To keep learning, read our ultimate guide to web content accessibility.
Success! This last sentence conveys the same meaning but has far better accessibility.
4. Write alternate text for images
Alternate text, often called “alt text” for short, are image descriptions included in the HTML code on websites.
Screen readers read alt text aloud, so that visually impaired users don’t miss out on important context just because they can’t see it.
Using alt text is accessibility 101, and should be standard practice. However, as it’s become easier for anyone to write and publish content on the Internet, alt text is often missing from digital content.
How to write meaningful alt text
Remember that the purpose of alt text is to provide context and meaning. When writing alt text, ask yourself: what is the purpose of this image, and what does it communicate? Be specific and add meaning verbally.
For example, let’s say you’re writing a blog post about stress in the workplace. You’ve chosen an image of a person sitting at a desk, chewing on a pencil, looking frazzled. Don’t just write alt text that says “woman in a white shirt sitting at a desk working.” While it might be specific, it doesn’t really add any value or meaning to the reader. It’s more worthwhile to describe how the person in the image looks stressed, rather than what they are wearing.
Don’t forget images in emails
Although missing alt text can happen anywhere, I most often notice missing alt text in emails. More specifically, in the online marketing and “solopreneur” (solo-entrepreneur) industry. Anyone can start a business and start sending marketing emails using Convertkit and Mailchimp, without ever learning about accessibility basics. The result is that creators are putting crucial information in their emails through text-based images that don’t have alt text.
As content people, remember that alt text matters whether it’s on a website or in an email or even on social media. Let’s stop leaving people behind just because new software is making it easy to do so.
5. Stress-test your copy with a persona spectrum
When writing with accessibility in mind, think about the wide and wonderful spectrum of people who will love your content. Often, writers without disabilities have a very narrow idea of who accessibility benefits. The truth is that accessible content and copy benefits a LOT of people, for lots of reasons.
An incredibly easy yet high-impact way to make your content more accessible is to “stress test” your content. Think about the incredible diversity of people, situations, and environments that your content will live in. Ask yourself, will my content still be accessible in lots of different contexts for lots of people? This can help you uncover issues that would otherwise go unnoticed.
To help you do this, check out the inclusive design toolkit from Microsoft. The toolkit includes a “personal spectrum” that explores permanent, temporary, and situational reasons that your reader would benefit from accessible content.
Using this spectrum to stress-test your copy is great, because it opens up our minds to all the many reasons why accessible content is important. Often times, able-bodied writers think that “accessibility” only matters to a minute percentage of readers—but that just isn’t true. Accessible content benefits a lot of people, for a lot of reasons.
For example, video captions are not only important to deaf and hard of hearing users. They could also benefit someone who has a migraine and is feeling sensitive to noise, or someone who has an ear infection, or someone who is in a loud environment, or someone whose iPhone speaker is broken.
How to stress-test your copywriting for accessibility
Using the Microsoft persona spectrum as a guide (or create your own), read your content from the perspective of different accessibility needs.
Would your content “work” for someone using a screen reader?
Would your content make sense to someone who speaks English as a second language?
Would your hyperlink be easy to click on for a new parent whose hands are literally full, and who is exhausted?
If the answer is “no” to any of your stress-test questions, then you need to rework your content. This method is the least often used, but perhaps the most effective when it comes to accessible content creation. Try it, use it, and recommend it to people you know.
Accessible copywriting: 2 key takeaways
First, remember that clear is better than clever. Copywriters are often very creative, and excel at coming up with clever and unique ways of explaining something. While clever can be great, don’t be so clever and creative that people will struggle to understand what you mean.
Second, providing more than one way to access and understand something is an underlying principle of most accessibility guidelines. If you have audio, make sure there’s also captions and a transcript. If you have an image, write alt text so that people have the option to “read” the image instead. Expanding methods of access supports accessibility.
To keep learning about web content accessibility, here are a few great resources:
The Readability Guidelines from Content Design London, a free wiki based on evidence and universal usability standards.
This Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview page from w3.org as a source of truth.
Finally, if you need a web content accessibility partner, AVO agency can help. Please contact us if you’re working on a website or mobile application, or would like to get some accessibility training for your writing team.