Accessibility checklist for communications

Use this checklist to make sure your communications are accessible and to learn ways to improve your written, visual, and digital communications. ​

When creating your communications, consider co-designing your content with your audience. This will help you make sure it meets their information and communication support needs. ​

Meetings and presentations

• Have you asked all participants about their visual and audio needs and have they been catered for?
• Is the presenter’s voice clear?
• Have documents been shared prior to the meeting and were they developed in accessible formats?
• Is the platform being used screen reader friendly?
• Are people aware of the accessibility functions of the platforms being used (for example, live captioning in Microsoft Teams and Zoom)?
• Do meetings have adequate lighting?
• Where appropriate, are trigger and content warnings in place?

Printed communications

• Is the language simple, clear, and inclusive to your audience?
• Is the communication written in plain English, first person, active voice?
• Are meaningful and descriptive headings used?
• Is the font sans serif?
• Is the font large enough for a person with visual impairment to read (that is, minimum 12-point type size for all text and minimum 18-point type size for large print documents)?
• Can your communication be accessed by those with low literacy levels, by culturally and linguistically diverse communities and by those with hearing or vision impairments?
• If your audience would benefit from image descriptions, have they been included? For example, in rural and regional health communications it may be helpful in identifying locations.
• Does the communication provide good colour contrast between text and background?
• Are you relying on colour alone to communicate information? This causes barriers to access for colourblind or low-vision people, and screen readers do not announce colours.
• Does the communication limit use of capital letters, bold font, italics and underlining?
• Are acronyms spelt out first and unusual terms or difficult words explained?

PDFs

• Are PDFs in an accessible alternative, such as HTML, Word, text, or RTF?
• Are PDFs tagged with accessibility features? Such as:
• headings and text
• alternative text for images
• tables and lists
• bookmarks
• links.
  
• Are PDF forms coded with accessibility techniques?
• Are page numbers specified for consistency across PDF readers?
• Is the document title and language specified?
• Are bookmarks used in addition to headings to navigate content?
• Is text searchable (the PDF is not a scanned image)?

Multimedia communications

• Are all videos captioned and do they include descriptions of sounds or visual content that are important for understanding the video?
• Are written transcripts provided?
• Are videos short, simple, and easy to follow?
• Do videos avoid bright or rapidly flashing colours?
• Are unusual terms or difficult words explained?
• Are graphics and diagrams clear?
• Does your audio allow people time to comprehend calls to action and does it use voices that are appropriate for the audience and subject matter?
• Do audio descriptions present information in a logical order?
• Does your audio avoid background noise and music?

Digital communications

• Does the website follow the current web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) standard?
• Does the communication provide meaningful and descriptive links?
• Does the page use a heading hierarchy that can be picked up by a screen reader?
• Are unusual terms or difficult words explained?
• Do email signatures support individual communication needs and preferences?
• Is the platform being used screen reader friendly?
• Do images have alternative text?
• Is there any text underlined that is not a link?

Social media

• Images
• Is the text in images in your post included?
• Is there enough contrast between your text and background?
• Is alternative text for informative images provided?
• Have emojis and emoticons been used sparingly?
• Video
• Are captions provided for videos?
• Are audio descriptions provided for videos?
• Readability
• Have jargon, acronyms and idioms been avoided?
• Has CamelCase been used for hashtags?
• Have hashtags or mentions at the end of the post been included?
• Have short links been created? Were redundant links removed?
• Have users been told when linking to an image, video, or audio file?
• Are X (formerly Twitter) posts on the same topic thread related?