Content creators are always working on making their writing better and more accessible to wider audiences. But, producing content which is accessible and of good quality means more than just making the text readable and understandable, writes Grace Carter.
Being accessible also means that you have to lead your reader through the text in a way that gives them value and understanding of what it’s about. Accessibility of content includes users of all abilities whether situational or permanent.
What is accessible writing?
Writers are supposed to create content that different people can consume. The content should be accessible to people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation or Braille interface as well as people using mobile and desktop devices and people of various cognitive capabilities.
You should consider things like:
- Is there too much of jargon and is the message still clear without the images or videos?
- Is the markup clean?
- Does it work on mobile?
- Is the content scannable?
In order to make the content accessible, you need to:
- Use headings — they make the content more scannable
- Avoid directional language — put directions just below the title.
- Create a hierarchy — put the most important information first elaborate later.
- Label required fields in forms clearly — carefully think what is required
- Descriptive links — don’t use ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’
- Use simple language — short sentences and paragraphs, no jargon or slang, elaborate the abbreviations and so on.
- Use alt text — this means that you should add a text that describes an image, in case a user can’t see the image
- Put transcriptions on all videos
- Have high contrast between background and font — the text needs to be easy to read (green text on a black background is a terrible option, for instance).
Tools
Luckily, there are many tools out there that can make your writing more accessible for all audiences. Here are some of the best tools that can help you improve your content.
Grammar
Via Writing and Writing Populist: Grammar is one of the most important things when it comes to the overall readability of your text. If grammar rules are not followed throughout the text, it can be hard for your readers to understand what it says.
This is why these tools could make your life easier. These two are grammar checkers that work in a simple yet effective way. You paste the finished text in their editor and in a few seconds, you get a finished report on your grammar accuracy. The only difference between them is that Writing Populist offers a plagiarism checker.
Proofing
Proofreading is a tedious task that no writer likes to do but even the strongest of writers need it. Tiny mistakes can happen to anyone but they make the text really confusing. Recommended by Revieweal, Boom Essays and UKWritings, are particularly good. All you need to do is copy the text into their software and it discovers all of your mistakes.
My Writing Way and Simple Grad: There are many great writing blogs but these two are some of the best. You can visit them and read many accessibility writing tips and guidelines for better content as well as some tips from professionals who have done research and tried many different approaches to writing.
Editing
Essay Writer and Essayroo: These editing tools have been reviewed by OXessays reviews and their quality has been confirmed. Editing is quite time consuming on its own and you can never be sure that it’s really up to code, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. However, these tools make sure that all of your content is up to the standards. All you need to do is enter your content and these tools give you pointers as to what to fix and what can stay.
State Of Writing and Letsgoandlearn: Writing is always easier if you break it down into a series of simple steps or milestones. These tools give you an idea on what steps to take in order to finish the content properly. For instance, if you have a text of 2,500 words to write, these tools break it down into small paragraphs and tasks related to SEO and accessibility.
Final thoughts
Accessibility is extremely important nowadays, especially with all the different devices you can see the text from. It can be hard pinpointing what exactly needs to be done in order to make the text better and more accessible. Keeping all the rules in mind and following them through is a bit difficult though. So, in order to keep your text accessible, you should use some tools that can help you out.
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