Accessible content for social media

Writing posts

• Write posts that are easy to read and understand. Be careful of:
  • jargon, abbreviations - avoid them if your audience is not familiar with them
  • idioms - non-literal language can be difficult to interpret
  • maintaining clarity while being concise when posting on Twitter.
• When using multiple-word hashtags, capitalise the first letter in each word so they'll be more readable (#WebWriting, #SocialMediaTips).
• Consider placing hashtags and @mentions at the end of your post, so the main part of it can be read without interruption.
• Limit your use of emoticons. If you do use them, make sure the emotion they portray is obvious from the text in your post. Avoid text-based emoticons. VoiceOver can read some of them properly, but many will be misread by screen readers.

Linking in posts

• Ensure linked content is clearly labelled:
  • Social networks like Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn generate a link and description based on metadata from the resource you're linking to (the og:title and og:description if the resource includes Open Graph metadata, otherwise the HTML title and meta description). You might need to supplement or clarify them.
  • Remove the URL from your Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn post after the network has generated the link and description. Leaving it duplicates the link in a form that's not easy to read.
  • Where necessary, include text that explains the value of the linked content or the reason why you're sharing it.
• Avoid linking to inaccessible content. If you must, consider including a warning ('no captions', for example).
• Limit links to documents. If used, ensure PDFs are tagged and warn users about the file type and size ('[PDF 500kB]' for example)
• Consider including a warning when linking directly to images, infographics, video or audio ('[PIC]', '[VIDEO]', '[AUDIO]'), unless your post already makes this obvious.

Using images in posts

• Provide a text alternative for images you post, except where the image is purely decorative.
  • Include the text alternative as part of your post. On Twitter, enable the 'compose image descriptions' setting. Or use EasyChirp to write a longer text alternative linked from your post
  • For image galleries, use the space provided for captions to include a text alternative for each image
• Post images with strong colour contrast, so the text and any data they contain is legible.
• Avoid posting images that use colour alone for meaning. If you must use them, include text to provide the information that a colour-blind person would otherwise miss out on.
• Minimise posting images of text, except when the text is decorative or part of a logo, screenshot, map, diagram or chart. If you must post them, prefer images where the text is large and uses a plain font.
• Don't post images that flash more than 3 times in any second, unless you've tested them to ensure they won't cause seizures.

Using video in posts

• Post video that is captioned and includes any necessary audio descriptions.
  • Post on YouTube where you can caption and audio describe video.
  • If you post directly to other networks, link to a captioned and audio-described version.
  • Don’t rely on auto-generated captions as they are often inaccurate.
• Give each video a clear title and description.
• Avoid posting videos that use colour alone to convey meaning, or poor colour contrast for text or data contained in them.
• Don’t post videos with content that flashes more than 3 times in any second, unless you’ve tested them to ensure they won’t cause seizures.
• Where possible, provide a link to a transcript.

Resources

• Improving the accessibility of social media in government
• Enabling 'compose image description' in Twitter
• EasyChirp
• Colour contrast analyser