Principle: Accessible
Ensuring Accessibility
Tactics to apply to make your communications accessible
Ensure access for people with disabilities
To achieve WHO’s communications objectives, communicators must ensure that everyone can access WHO information, advice and guidance. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes that access to information and communication technologies is a basic human right.
Design compatible content
According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), all website content should meet accessibility standards for people with disabilities.
WHO periodically performs accessibility audits of all its webpages. The 2015 audit shows strong accessibility compliance. To ensure that website content is accessible to all and is compatible with all devices, communicators need to:
- ensure that webpages work on all platforms and browsers;
- format information so it displays adequately on all devices, including smart phones and tablets;
- keep most file sizes small (less than 300 kilobytes) so users with slow internet connection can still have access to content; and
- create links to large files, rather than embedding them in a webpage, so users can retrieve them if they have access to more bandwidth.
Consider individuals with low vision
To ensure individuals with low vision have access to WHO information, advice and guidance, communicators can use a variety of techniques to enhance usability of web material.
For example, adding ALT (alternative) text to an image such as a picture allows screen readers to describe that images to someone with low vision. This provides users who cannot see the image to have an idea of what it depicts by listening to the content.
