Accessibility in Publishing: Red Flags & Tips for Editors

Just Content customers don’t always ask our editors to review content for accessibility as part of their briefs, but having gained so much experience in how to create accessible content, we can’t help but raise a red flag if we feel content could be more accessible.

We got together with our friends at PDQ Media to create this list of red flags to look out for, and to offer some tips that might help you to improve the accessibility of the content you are working on.?

Typography

Font choice, alignment, line space and line length are all important factors to consider when making content accessible. We would consider querying any designs or pieces of content which do not comply with the following:

• For body text, a left-aligned font is preferred with line spacing of 1.5 Left-aligned text helps the eye in finding where one sentence ends, and another begins. A line spaced at 1.5 creates just the correct amount of space so the eye moves naturally from one line to the next.
• Font size differs depending on the reading age of the target audience, so we might consider different font sizing if producing content across various age ranges. Within educational publishing, children aged 5-6 years old would require at least 17pt, whereas children aged 10-11 years old would find a font size of 13pt acceptable.
• For printed products, a font size of 10-12pt is considered best. In contrast, for online content, the equivalent would translate as 14-16pt, so it’s important to remember that the font size needs to be increased for digital content to maintain readability.
• The line length of the copy is equally important. If the line length is either too long or too short the eye finds it difficult to track, slowing down the reader and making the experience less engaging. A suggested maximum of 10-14 words or 60-65 characters yields good results, ensuring an efficient reading experience.
• Limiting the font choice to 2-3 different typefaces provides the reader with a more coherent, easier-to-understand reading experience.
• The use of variations such as bold, italic and upper case (CAPS), should be limited, as lengthy blocks of these variations can increase eye strain. Use these variations for emphasis, but ideally not for entire paragraphs.

White space

Allowing plenty of white space helps the reader to focus on the text. We might suggest the following to create white space where possible:

• Add white space around images and objects to provide a cleaner layout that doesn’t visually appear cluttered.
• Avoid placing text/images too close to the edges of the page.

Colour

1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women experience colour blindness, so it’s important to consider how your content and products use colour, to help make them accessible to all. Common red flags for us include:

• Specific colours used singularly or in colour groups can produce increased eye fatigue. This might result in headaches, making it difficult to focus and concentrate, so should be avoided when possible. An example would be to avoid using bright yellow against a white background, as both yellow and white reflect a high percentage of light, increasing strain on the eye. Vibrating colour combinations (red/green, magenta/green, yellow/cyan) should also be avoided for the same reason.
• Red has also been proven to cause fatigue, so should only be used to place emphasis or to gain attention. You can add a secondary variation of bold or italic to improve legibility.

Many free tools are available to check the accessibility of colour choices, providing colour combinations that pass the internationally-recognised WCAG 2.1 (Level AA) Standards:

• Colour Contrast Checker is an online tool which allows you to see colour combination results directly in your web browser.
• Color Contrast Analyzer is a downloadable tool which enables you to check colour contrast accessibility directly on any element on your local device.

For detailed information regarding all the different types of colour blindness and how colour impacts these conditions visit www.colourblindawareness.org

Alt text

We would always suggest that alternative text (alt text) should be written, as standard, for any images or diagrams used within a digital product. Alt Text is used by visually impaired users, providing the option to be read aloud using a screen reader.

• Alt text should be added to all non-decorative images (i.e. where the image does not visually communicate information that is crucial to the understanding and purpose of the content).
• Alt text should be short and descriptive, with minimal characters, like you would write for a Tweet. Helpful information to write successful alt text can be found at Perkins Schools for the Blind.
• There is no need to include ‘photo of’ or ‘image of’ in your alt text.

There are many courses out there for editors to improve their understanding of accessibility and gain the knowledge and skills needed to develop deeper expertise, but if you would like to build in some basic accessibility checks alongside your editorial work as standard, we hope this will be a starting point and help you to create content for your customers that is accessible to all.

Just Content is proud to have worked in partnership with PDQ Media since 2017 on a number of print and digital educational resources for many of our customers.