Illustration summarising the topic of accessibility. A tablet device is shown -- above it are 3 key symbols -- an eye, an ear and a pipette -- all of which refer to designing for different human senses.
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Digital Accessibility In Action

Digital accessibility Inclusivity

Around 15% of the world’s population (or just over one billion people) live with some form of disability, and yet people are often restricted from consuming information and entertainment because the digital accessibility of the content just hasn’t been considered.  

This got us thinking at Speed about our own content and how we might be able to make our communications more inclusive, so familiarising ourselves with digital accessibility and the role it can play in PR and on social media felt like the right place to start.  

For those not already aware, digital accessibility refers to designing websites, documents, content, tools, and technologies so that people with disabilities, including auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual, can use them. 

As a PR and communications agency, we’re always thinking about the effectiveness and impact of our communications.  To increase our understanding from a digital accessibility lens, we had the opportunity to join a session with accessibility consultant Joel Strohmeier who could tell us everything there is to know. 

A quick introduction

Before we met Joel, we decided to familiarise ourselves with digital accessibility together as an agency, highlighting the key terms like Alt Text, readability and remediation, and understanding the benefits of creating more accessible communications for our own audiences and those of our clients. 

We found that digital accessibility can be an incredibly useful asset for a PR and marketing agency, helping to expand market reach, enhance SEO, improve brand perception and boost user engagement, and this only fuelled our motivation to learn more about it.  

The big brands leading by example  

With the marketing benefits clear to see, it’s no wonder that some huge brands have been championing digital accessibility. We looked into some of the standout brands to give us some examples of best practice:  

  • HSBC focused on making its employee-facing systems accessible to everyone, collaborating with internal teams and disabled and neurodivergent employees to create an inclusive online learning platform and partnered with Zoom to build epilepsy safeguards into its software. 
  • Unilever started its accessibility journey in 2020, redesigning its corporate websites with accessibility in mind, incorporating features such as navigation landmarks, alt text, captioning, and motion control, ensuring that assistive technologies can easily navigate their sites. 
  • Cadbury Fingers masterminded the “Sign with Fingers Big and Small” campaign, created in collaboration with deaf writer and consultant Rebecca A. Whitney, which highlighted the exclusion of deaf individuals from conversations, a phenomenon known as ‘Dinner Table Syndrome’. The powerful ad featured a young girl communicating in British Sign Language with some subtitles covered over to emphasise the frustration of inaccessible communication.

Creating our toolkit

Feeling inspired by these brands and realising the potential of digital accessibility, we started doing our own research into how communications and marketing agencies can be more digitally accessible in the world of PR.  

We stumbled upon some amazing resources from industry professionals that gave us everything we needed to pull together our very own digital accessibility toolkit and checklist which will help our team understand digital accessibility and start to make our content and comms more accessible.   

Below is a list of the resources that we used, with links to each one:  

  • Agility PR – Digital accessibility in PR blog 
  • PR Moment – Accessible digital marketing blog  
  • PR Daily – Making digital content accessible blog

Our session with Joel Strohmeier

With the prep done and the whole team a bit more familiar with the concept, it was time to meet with Joel and explore digital accessibility in greater depth.  

In just an hour, Joel took us through the key elements of digital accessibility, the people that it affects, the essential considerations and strategies needed to achieve truly accessible content, and more.  

Here are our 5 top takeaways from the session: 

  1. Digital accessibility is made up of three key elements:
    a. Usability – how easy it is for someone to read your information or use your product/service
    b. Platform standards – the standards employed by specific platforms to facilitate digital accessibility
    c. Accessibility technologies – specific software or tools which someone with a disability may use to access your content e.g. screen readers
  2. Digital accessibility benefits a wide group of people and extends past permanent disabilities, factoring in both temporary (e.g. arm injury) and situational disabilities (e.g. not being able to hear in a noisy space)
  3. There are three layers to consider when thinking about digital accessibility for web-based content:
    a. Design – colour/contrast, labels, layout etc.
    b. Content – links/button names, alternative text for images, tabular data etc.
    c. Code – platforms, component libraries, well-tested code etc.
  4. Accessibility checklists are particularly helpful and can be used as an additional tool for proofing content – building these checklists into approvals helps to establish and reinforce best practice for digital accessibility
  5. Implementing alternative text for images is a key approach to improve the digital accessibility of social content – the best alternative text is accurate yet concise, provides context and conveys emotion/humour in the image

The key takeaway

The talk with Joel, and our wider focus on digital accessibility, has left us with a much stronger understanding of the concept, how it affects individuals, brands and industries including our own.  

For now, as we reflect on these insights and learnings, our key takeaway is the potential digital accessibility has to develop and empower communications and content. By making it more accessible and inclusive, content can be opened up to wider audiences and the key messages and purpose of communications can be understood by all.