Social media content tends to be highly focused around imagery and videos. While many people create and post content, most platforms like Facebook and Instagram have little structure to guide users to make their posts accessible to people with visual impairments or who are D/deaf or hard of hearing.
Consider Screen Readers
Screen readers work by reading everything on the page in the order based on the website’s coding. This generally means from top to bottom, left to right. It will read everything as it is written, in full.
- If you have a really long username with a bunch of emojis, a screen reader will read it out in full for each post.
- Posts that use text as a drawing (or are otherwise not meant to be read in full) will also be read regardless.
Tedious amounts of information make social media less pleasant, and even frustrating to use.
Provide Image Descriptions
Most social media platforms don’t have an integrated function to add image descriptions to photos you upload. It’s helpful to add a description of the image in the description or comments of the post, so that people with visual impairments using a screen reader can understand the content. Here is a Twitter thread about writing effective image descriptions.
Twitter does has a function to add descriptions to images that you upload. Here is a tweet showing how to turn on image descriptions.
Use Content Warnings
Movies and TV have content warnings to tell you when there is potentially harmful content, like flashing lights or discussion of sensitive subjects. However, on social media, there is little to no warning to allow users control over whether or not they are interested in viewing such content.
For people with photosensitive epilepsy, flashing imagery without warning can trigger a seizure. For survivors of trauma and people recovering from addiction, enabling control over their environment can make the internet a more safe and comfortable place.
When making a content warning, put it somewhere it would be seen before the sensitive content. This depends on the social media platform you’re using and whether the sensitive content is in text, a photo, or a video.
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