Images

Represent disabled people

Often we think of a disabled person as someone in a wheelchair. But there are so many more physical and cognitive disabilities, many of which are hidden. Disabled people are everywhere. So please represent them in your social media communications. Disabled people eat bread, wash the dishes, drive cars, care about the environment, donate to charities, start businesses.

Ideally, find disabled people who use your product and service and ask them to represent your brand. Just as people. Not as a token. Not as an inspiration. Not as a gesture. Just because “Why not?”

Image banks

Pexels (opens in a new tab) has a lot of images for free use. There are images of disabled people doing everyday activities. Search for disability, disabled, or something more specific like braille, Down syndrome, or sign language.

PhotoAbility: (opens in a new tab)Authentic (opens in a new tab) Disability Stock Images (opens in a new tab) When authenticity is important to you and your audience...all our models are real people with disabilities and a portion of each sale is paid directly to them

NosWhyNot? (opens in a new tab) is an agency and training organisation for people with disabilities, based in Spain, but international.

Disabled And Here (opens in a new tab) is a photo and interview series celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).

Disability Inclusive Stock Photography (opens in a new tab) In an effort to empower business to achieve disability inclusion and equality, we encourage corporations to use this in recruitment material, marketing material, internal and external communications, etc.

Photosymbols: The Easy Read Photo Library (opens in a new tab) Online photo library and essential tool for people who produce easy read information.

Alternative text

Alternative text gives an image some words. This means that assistive technology can say what an image is. All images on the web need alt text but sometimes an image is just for decoration, so it will have an empty alt text.

Most social media platforms allow you to add alt text. See the Social media accessibility help pages section to check how.

Guidelines for Alt text

• 100 characters or less
• Empty or null alt text for decorative images - this means that assistive technology will ignore the image. Note that Twitter, for example, does not automatically give an empty alt text. So assistive technology users will hear “image” but not know what the image is.
• Images of text. It's best not to use images of text but if you do make sure that
• The text is legible. Use a clean font, and good colour contrast.
• The alt text is the same as the text in the image. “Keep calm and carry on”

• Don’t start with “Image of…” or “Picture of…” or “Photo of…” as the assistive technology will announce an image. A user would hear “Image, Image of a wall…”
• If the text is written close to the image then you could have an empty alt text.

Colour blind friendly

Color blindness affects about 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women (0.5%).

Make colours different enough that colour blindness doesn’t matter at all. Use colorblind simulations to help with accessible design decisions, such as having more than one identifier of state than just colour. As well as colour you might use

• shape
• pattern
• icons
• font weight
• underlines (which on the web always show a link)

Reading on colour blindness

Simulations are perfectly imperfect (opens in a new tab)

Colblindor – All about Color Blindness (opens in a new tab)

How to Make Your Mobile App Color Blind Friendly (opens in a new tab)

Particletree » Be Kind to the Color Blind (opens in a new tab)

Colour blind tools

Coloring for (opens in a new tab)Colorblindness (opens in a new tab) - Create a palette (opens in a new tab)

Colorblindly (opens in a new tab) - Chrome extension to show the effects of colour blindness

Color Oracle (opens in a new tab)| (opens in a new tab) Color Oracle (opens in a new tab) - free color blindness simulator for Windows, Mac and Linux

Color Brewer (opens in a new tab) Web tool for guidance in choosing map and chart color schemes

Gifs

Animated gifs can be accessible if they are set to stop after 5 seconds or if users are presented with a way to pause it, if they have alt text and if they do not contain blinking/flashing.

You should also ask yourself if there is another way that the message can be communicated. Would a still image do? If not, think about providing an alternative or some way that users can forgo the animation or switch to an embedded video.

From Are animated gifs okay? (opens in a new tab)

BBC GEL | How to make accessible animated images (opens in a new tab)

Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool (PEAT) - Trace Research & Development Center (opens in a new tab)