Accessibility in Graphic Design
Strategic Communications teams have the power to ensure that everyone within their organisation feels valued and included. But how can we guarantee that our comms don’t leave anybody out?
When designing for communications, it’s essential that you understand the diversity of your audience. Endeavouring to be as inclusive as you can ensures that the largest number of people possible are equally informed, inspired and influenced. At Clarion, we understand the importance of accessibility in graphic design, which is why accessible design forms such a central part of our Strategic and Creative Communications Team’s approach to our work.
What is Accessibility in Graphic Design?
Accessibility in graphic design means considering the user experience of individuals with various needs, including those relating to vision, hearing and mobility impairments or neurodivergence, as well as individuals without these impairments. The WCAG Guidelines are standards followed in the web design industry and beyond. These have been written to ensure that content published online obeys the four guiding principles of accessibility in graphic design; perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness. These four rules happen to correlate to and underpin what is considered good graphic and visual design.
A Standard for Design
Graphic designers, as standard, typically adhere to graphic design principles or best practice. Their primary aim is to reduce the effort required for the average user to absorb information. This is done by leveraging aesthetics to direct the audience’s attention through content in a digestible manner that works with the content’s meaning. The graphic design principles they adhere to include:
Hierarchy
Alignment
Rhythm and movement
Emphasis
Balance
Contrast
Space
Designers use typography, colour, layout, imagery, and graphics as tools to achieve the desired results, as well as fulfilling other requirements of good graphic design, like making content that is memorable and exciting to look at!
What to Consider When Designing for Accessibility
As designers at Clarion, we believe that good design should prioritise reducing the work and effort required by as many diverse groups of people as possible to ensure maximum inclusivity.
Things that should be considered when designing for accessibility include:
Providing options for accessing content in different formats, such as text versions, transcripts for audio, video captions, and dark mode.
Integrating visuals to aid in understanding and focus for individuals with attention disorders and other neurodivergences.
Using graphics in vector image formats to ensure readability and prevent pixelation when zoomed in.
Being particularly mindful of colour contrast to accommodate individuals with sight difficulties and conditions such as dyslexia. Online contrast and accessibility checkers can be used, such as the Adobe Colour Analyser, to test your colour palette, ensuring text and graphics contrast adequately with their backgrounds for accessibility in graphic design.
Avoiding italics, all caps and underlining (except for links) to help those with sight difficulties.
Ensuring that interactive elements are obvious and meaningfully labelled.
Ensuring that layouts are consistent and therefore predictable.
Screenshot of Adobe Colour Analyser
Notes on Designing For Screen Readers
To assist individuals using screen readers:
Provide alt text for images used online or in documents. This text describes the image and should be both meaningful and concise. The screen reader will use this text to describe the image. Use alt text only when the image significantly enhances the meaning of the content; otherwise, mark it as decorative to minimise distractions for users.
Use or create paragraph styles in your chosen design application to designate Titles, Headings, and paragraph types. This enables screen readers to recognise changes in importance and navigate through content accurately. Additionally, in some applications, export tagging and setting a reading order are necessary to ensure content will be read in the intended order.
How can Clarion Insight Help?
Anyone creating or sharing content should be aware of these considerations. It’s important that you put measures in place and adjust your ways of working to ensure your content meets accessibility standards.
At Clarion our Strategic and Creative Communications Service regards accessibility in graphic design as a fundamental pillar of our approach to our work. Within this service, my colleagues and I apply our accumulated knowledge and experience of working with graphic design principles efficiently and effectively. We prioritise designing with the full diversity of users/audience in mind, from the initial stages of the design process through to its completion. For assistance or advice with accessibility in graphic design, please don't hesitate to reach out to us via our website, or email communications@clarioninsight.com.