How accessible you are to your own team sets the bar for how effectively you’re able to engage external audiences. Take an inventory of any barriers to understanding content used for your recruitment and onboarding processes. For example, let’s say your brand provides healthcare technology products and services. To learn about complex medical industry topics, your new hires are required to complete a series of training videos. Accommodating your entire staff means developing videos that offer descriptions of visual information, well-paced narration, and closed captions translated into all official languages employees use

Keeping accessibility top of mind in every aspect of your content strategy ensures that users with disabilities don’t feel like an afterthought. Connecting brand guardians with accessibility experts enables your team to resolve concerns related to each type of asset you will create—and add these best practices to your brand playbook. When possible, create work from scratch to avoid re-introducing compliance issues from legacy documents. Depending on how much legacy content you need to update, consider using software to update metadata en masse, making it easier for any user to navigate the website, and improving your SEO results.

Numerous free online tools, including Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker, HTML Tidy, CommonLook Office, and Colour Contrast Analyser check individual accessibility requirements. Some software platforms monitor for a broad range of compliance issues and provide suggestions in real time. However, it’s crucial that people familiar with commonly overlooked digital accessibility issues review your content as well. The AODA and other consultative services offer comprehensive audits and on-site training to help brands meet WCAG’s Level AA or Level AAA—the highest possible standard.

Consider how to overcome potential obstacles to understanding your content while working within your brand guidelines. For example, avoid using complicated abbreviations, mathematical symbols, words from different languages, or long footnotes, as audiences using text-to-speech tools may not be able to interpret their meaning. Develop a clear information hierarchy in your document, write concise paragraphs, select a WCAG-approved font family and size, and remove jargon-heavy language before publishing.

As you create assets such as infographics and sales presentations, ensure design layouts are clean, easy-to-read, and space lines and columns sufficiently. Accommodate low vision readers by combining colours that contrast strongly with one another—such as bright coloured text on a white background. Avoid combinations like red and green, which can be difficult for colour blind viewers to differentiate. Clear and simple alt-text for graphics, links, and figures helps all users get the full impact of a document.

Prioritizing accessibility to your brand online is essential to growing your business. By taking a methodical, forward-thinking mindset to ensuring your content meets current and future compliance standards, you stand to engage countless new customers and brand partners while championing inclusivity as central to society.