Disability inclusion on Social Media
According to the United Nations , over 1 billion people in the world are experiencing disability. This makes up about 15% of the world’s demographic. In Kenya, 0.9 million are people with disability(PWDS).
Today, businesses are on social media interacting with their customers and prospects.
This means that all social media strategies have to have an inclusive approach. Disability inclusion means that your business is not leaving anyone out as a target market.
Moreover, the Kenyan constitution grantees persons with disability a barrier- free and disability- friendly environment to enable them to have access to buildings, roads and other social amenities, and assistive devices and other equipment to promote their mobility.
Thus, disability inclusion in social media is not only the right thing to do morally and for business purposes, but it is also a legal requirement.
As social media users , persons with disability experience challenges and barriers in their daily use. Individually and collectively, we tend to forget disability inclusion when sharing content on our social media accounts. However, one must make disability inclusion a priority.
When sharing content on social media, you can follow the following steps to make your content more accessible:
1. Use Plain Language
Assistive technology eg screen readers find it easier to read clear and direct text. This makes it easier for low vision users or the blind to interact and understand your social media content.
2. Alt Descriptions & Captions on videos
A lot of the content shared on social media is visual. Alt Descriptions help the people who are blind to access your content. For videos, disability inclusion includes having relevant captions in the local language. This is for the people with hearing loss or deaf.
3. First language of the target audience
One has to use the right language and be respectful. You content emphasise should be on the person you are talking to not on their disability.
4. Emojis & Emoticons use where necessary
Assistive technology reads aloud the content that is shared on social media.
Avoid the number of times people will hear the technology read out emoji descriptions. This makes the experience more bearable.
5. Hashtags with Camel Case
Hashtags are important for social media. When the hashtags have multi words, make use of Camel Case to ensure disability inclusion. Screen readers find it easier to read camel-cased hashtags.
6. Shorten your links
Make use of link shortening services. This limits the number of characters that assistive technology has to read out aloud.
Disability Incusion
Make use of link shortening services. This limits the number of characters that assistive technology has to read out aloud.
This is a short and inclusive guideline. A lot more can be done and one needs to consistently learn. Make, disability inclusion the core of your digital strategy.
This will improve your communication and increase your content reach. You become a better business, person and one that will be seen as inclusive.