The theme for this year’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month is “Inclusion Drives Innovation.” That really defines what we do in our industry, doesn’t it? We strive to include all people in workforce development, and by doing so, we create opportunities to be innovative and creative to make certain that all people are treated fairly, with dignity and respect.
For all of us, a large part of our celebration of NDEAM will include posts on our various social media sites. The tips below from NDEAM should be quite helpful as you prepare your messages and get them to the right audiences. More information can be found here.
Social Media Accessibility Tips
- Make sure your profile page includes alternative contact options, like an accessible “contact us” form or toll-free phone number, or an email link to somebody who can assist people with questions.
- Let screen reader users know what to expect by including a short prefix before posts that have photos [PIC], videos [VIDEO] or audio [AUDIO].
- Link back to pages with full captions or transcripts of the photo, video or audio.
- To increase readability, place #hashtags or @mentions at the end of tweets or posts.
- Avoid abbreviations and spell out acronyms in tweets or posts.
- For multi-word hashtags, capitalize the first letters of each section of a compound word (#LikeThisExample).
- If possible, test your tweet with assistive technology before posting it.
- Provide closed captioning for YouTube videos.
Twitter is designed to reach a broad audience. Twitter in its native form, however, may not be fully accessible for everyone. If you do not already have a preferred Twitter client meeting your accessibility needs, one of the following free Twitter clients/platforms may be able to assist:
- Android: Plume for Twitter
- iOS: Official Twitter App
- My Amaze multiple browser accessibility plug-in by Deque
- TwInbox for Outlook
NDEAM is for acknowledging those individuals with disabilities in the workforce and seeking work as well as those that assist them along the way. Thank you for all YOU do!
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