Introduction
Communication is the single most in-demand skill across the globe in 2024, according to a recent analysis by LinkedIn. Writing skills are a critical part of good communication skills, and one of the most important skills for learning and development professionals—especially instructional designers.
For our writing to be understood easily, we need to consider three things:
- Language: The words and phrasing we use
- Appearance: How the information looks
- Formatting: How the information is coded
We’ll discuss each of these considerations in this article. But first, let’s take a look at what accessibility has to do with it.
How Writing Affects Accessibility
Writing skills are an often overlooked, but fundamental, part of universal design for learning (UDL) and accessibility. Whether we’re composing scripts, writing eLearning lessons, developing instructor guides, or summarizing analysis data, instructional designers and other learning and development professionals need to have good writing skills. Moreover, these skills are incomplete if they don’t take accessibility into consideration.
These considerations affect whether our content is perceivable and understandable. These are two of the POUR principles that form the framework for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). That is, to be accessible, information must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.
Language
The first consideration for improving accessibility through better written communication is the language we use. Choosing what we write and how we write it is key to ensuring that our content is understandable—the U in the POUR Principles.
This means using plain language, which I’ve written about previously. Plain language is primarily about using simple, easy-to-understand words and short sentences. It means avoiding acronyms, jargon, and overly technical language.
Generally, we should write at about an 8th-grade level, or at a level where most 13-year-olds would understand. You can easily check the reading level of your content using Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check. You can also use online tools like Grammarly or the Hemingway app.
This isn’t about “dumbing down” the content. It doesn’t matter whether your learners have PhDs or GEDs. Everyone benefits when content is easy to read. When we’re learning something new, complex sentences add extraneous cognitive load, making it more difficult for us to learn.
We also need to be careful about using idioms, especially when we’re writing for a global audience. They don’t translate well. They can also make the information confusing for some neurodivergent folks who are literal thinkers.
Another important part of writing for accessibility is speaking directly to the learner (with “you”) using a conversational tone. Research by Richard Mayer and others has shown that people learn better this way, and it’s come to be known as the Personalization Principle.
Appearance
The next consideration for improving accessibility through better written communication is how the information looks. Whenever we’re designing written content, we need to consider the P in the POUR principles: is it perceivable?
An example of this done wrong is a billboard I saw when I was driving down the highway. The text was a fancy font¾some type of script¾over background that was all flames. I have no idea what they were advertising because I couldn’t read it. The font wasn’t clear, and the background was too busy. It wasn’t perceivable. And I wondered how much money that company wasted renting that huge billboard to display a message that their audience can’t read.
Besides avoiding fancy fonts, we should think about font size and weight. Body text should be at least 12 points for accessibility. Avoid using the “light” or “thin” versions available in some font families. In addition, left-align text unless it’s a very short amount. Centered or justified text is harder to read.
We also need to think about other issues that typeface can cause. For example, in some font families, the letters p, q, b, and d all look the same except for the direction they face (known as mirroring). This can be problematic especially for people with dyslexia. You may have seen the meme in which a chair is turned upside down, on its side both ways, and right side up. The meme is captioned, “It’s still a chair.” But for some reason, when you turn a p upside down, it becomes a d. My dyslexic husband and son tell me this makes no sense to their brains.
There’s mixed research about whether sans serif (such as Arial) or serif (such as Times New Roman) fonts are more readable. To learn more about choosing accessible fonts, see this post on LinkedIn from Gareth Ford Williams with results from a Readability Group Study, as well as a link to a helpful article about what makes a typeface accessible.
Another design choice that affects whether people will be able to perceive the information we write is color contrast. An estimated 300 million people in the world have color vision deficiency. (That’s nearly the same number as the population of the United States!) Use a tool like the WebAIM Contrast Checker or the Colour Contrast Analyser desktop application from TPGi to ensure sufficient color contrast.
Formatting
The third consideration for improving accessibility through better written communication is the formatting we use. Even when formatting makes no visible difference to sighted users, it can affect whether our information is perceivable and understandable. If we’re creating a web page, we need to use heading markups (such as <h1>, <h2>, etc.). This helps screen reader users understand the hierarchy of the information, and it allows them to skip to certain headings quickly.
If we’re creating content in Word, we need to use the styles pane to create headings rather than just applying visual styles like enlarging the text and making it bold. Creating actual headings helps everyone. For example, if we create a user manual using heading styles, then users can jump to a specific section of the document using the navigation pane in Word. Or, if we convert that Word document to a PDF, those headings become bookmarks.
Be sure to update your document’s file properties so the title and subject are correct, and consider adding keywords. This metadata can also help people find your content, whether it’s published on the Internet or on your company’s SharePoint site. For PDFs and certain other content, make sure you specify the language.
Another important formatting consideration is using descriptive links rather than just saying “click here” or “learn more.” If you have multiple “learn more” links, someone using a screen reader may not know the difference between them, because if they skip to that link, they’re not seeing the context all around it that a sighted user might have.
We should also be careful to use links and buttons consistently. Use buttons when performing an action, such as submitting a form or an answer to a question. Links should take the user somewhere. I’ve written about links vs. buttons in a previous post.
Transcripts and captions are also really important for making sure your content is perceivable as well as understandable. I always encourage transcripts in addition to captions, because they are really helpful for folks like me with cognitive disabilities, so that we can go back and reference the information easily.
Also, if you’ve got images and text timed to audio, a transcript is a great way to make that presentation style more accessible. I usually use a table format, so I have the image description in one column and the narration that’s spoken in another.
Summary
To wrap up, three considerations for improving accessibility through better written communication are:
- Language
- Appearance
- Formatting
Keeping these things in mind will help ensure that the learning experiences you create are perceivable and understandable to all your learners.
Download the infographic at the bottom of this post to keep this information handy.
Related Posts
Also see these posts to learn more:
- How to Use Plain Language to Improve Learning Outcomes
- More Plain Language Tips for Instructional Writing
- 7 Inclusive Design Tips for Buttons in eLearning
- Interview: Writing Accessible Copy
If you’re looking for more guidance, with feedback on your writing, stay tuned! I’m working on a course for learning and development professionals who want to improve their writing skills through the triple lens of instructional design, inclusion, and accessibility. Details will be coming soon!
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