Introduction
Writing with accessibility in mind means that you are trying to make sure that your content can be read and understood by as wide an audience as possible.
The information below offers some helpful tips on improving the accessibility of your web content, including pages and news articles.
Before you start
Before you create your content, please read through our Content Strategy for guidance on how to write for the web.
The guidance covers:
- What the Content Strategy is for and why it helps
- Rules for what content goes online and how it should look
- Tips to help our content show up in search engines
- How we plan and publish content
- What to do if you do not agree with a content decision
- How we check and update content
Key Principles
To be truly accessible, it is not enough for web content to look nice. To follow the law and make sure everyone can read and understand your website – no matter their disability – the content pages need to work properly with tools like screen readers.
The main principles to follow are:
- use headings in sequential order
- present the information in a logical reading order
- write in short, simple sentences, being concise and to the point
- write in plain language, avoiding jargon and abbreviations
- use proper list formatting for numbered or bullet lists
- use descriptive link text
- provide a meaningful description of important images
In the following pages we are going to explain how to make sure your web content has all of these things, so that it is legally compliant and easy to use for all viewers.
The Content Block Ribbon
An important tool to understand to be able to make accessible web content is the “Content block ribbon”. This is the row of tools that you see at the top of a text box when you are building a page or news article.
Screenshot of the Content Block ribbon.
On the right side of the ribbon the icons represent “tooltips”, which are tools you can use to add elements to your content such as notifications, and videos.
Some of the tools in the ribbon are self explanatory, such as bold text or lists. However some are less obvious, so in this guide we will go over how the tooltips should be used to make sure your content is built correctly.
Tables of data
Tables are only used for data. If your content is text based it is more accessible to present it as a text list, or text information structured with sub-headings.