Social Media Content Accessibility

A person who can't see an image on social media, because of a vision disability, wants to understand its meaning.

Describe images using alt text so that a screen reader user can understand the image.

Did you know?

All social media platforms provide a way to add alt text to images. 

Best Practices

• Meaningful Images: If an image provides meaning, and the meaning is not described in the text of the social media post, then the image must have alt text.
• Decorative Images: If the image is purely decorative, then leave the alt text blank or mark it decorative.

Quick Tips

• Try to keep alt text short. Don't say "image of...".
• If there's text on the image, put it in the alt text.
• For complex images like charts or infographics, provide the details another way - a link to a webpage with all details.

Animated gifs can distract people with cognitive disabilities and attention deficits.

Best Practices

• If the platform doesn't provide a way for a user to pause, stop, or hide animated gifs, then don't post animated gifs on that platform.
• Animated gifs that flash can cause physical harm. Don't post flashing animations.

When a screen reader speaks Emoji or Unicode, sometimes the words won't match your intention.

Example:

• North Carolina is First in 🛩️
• Screen reader says, "North Carolina is First in small airplane"

Best Practices

• Use Emoji sparingly.
• Don't replace words with Emoji. Put Emoji at the beginning or end of sentences.
• Don't use Emoji as bullets in a list. Use "real" lists.
• Test Emoji with a screen reader. If it sounds wrong in context, try a different Emoji or don't use Emoji.

Infographics provide a lot of info to people who can see. A person who can't see wants the info too.

Best Practices

• Long alt text is difficult to use with a screen reader.
  • For infographics, summarize the main points in brief alt text.
  • In the same social media post, link to a web page with a text description where a screen reader user can read all the info.
• Text on the infographic must meet the text contrast minimum WCAG guideline.
• Graphic objects on the infographic must meet the non-text contrast WCAG guideline.

When you post an image of text, that text can't be customized by a user.

Did you know?

People with low vision or dyslexia may use custom fonts, colors, or text sizes to make reading easier.

Best Practices

• When you can, use real text, not images of text so that users can customize how text looks.
• If you must use images of text, put that text in the alt text.
• Text on images must have sufficient contrast.

People that can't hear, want to read captions.

Best Practices

• Videos on social media must have captions.
• Captions must be accurate and synchronized.
• If background music and lyrics are important, include the text and description as captions.
• Captions must have sufficient text contrast.

Did you know?

• Some social media platforms provide auto-captioning. Check it for accuracy.
• Some platforms allow you to upload caption files (.srt).
• Some allow the you to type captions in manually.

People that can't see, want to hear a description of visual info.

Best Practices

• In the video, provide a spoken, audio description of visual-only content.

Avoid posting videos with flashing.

Flashing content can cause seizures in some individuals.

When text contrast is too low, it's hard or impossible to read, especially for a person with low vision.

Best Practices

• Provide sufficient contrast between text and its background.
• Test your text contrast using a contrast checker.
• Most text must be at least 4.5:1 with its background.
• Large text must be at least 3:1.

People won't follow your links if they can't understand where they go.

Best Practices

• Link text should make their purpose obvious.
• If your link goes to a North Carolina webpage or PDF, make sure that page or file is accessible.
• Link text is better than a full URL.
• A short URL is better than a long one.

Make hashtags easy to read.

Did You Know?

• Screen readers will read a multi-word hashtag as one giant word unless you format it a certain way.
• A person with dyslexia has a hard time reading all lowercase or uppercase hashtags.

Best Practices

• Format hashtags using Pascal Case (Start each word with an uppercase letter). Examples:
  • #NorthCarolina
  • #AccessibilityAwareness

Most people don't read social media, they scan it.

Plain language makes social media easy to scan.

Best Practices

• Put the most important info first.
• Use words with fewer syllables.
• Cut what doesn't matter.
• Learn about active voice vs passive voice.
• Headings, bullets, and bold formatting makes text easy to scan.
• Embrace whitespace: Would you rather read two short blocks of text or one long paragraph?