So today's session we'll be talking about inclusive and accessible social media.
My name is Jourdan Saunders, my pronouns are she/her, my visual description is I have brown skin, my hair is half up, half down, and I am wearing a black and white striped shirt, I am sitting in a black and white chair.
And in the background on top of my white desk is a stack of books, and a gold reindeer.
Thank you for joining me today, I look forward to sharing all the information about how to ensure your social media is inclusive and accessible.
Now keep in mind, this is just a shorter version.
So we have a longer version, as well, that will cover more in detail about other ways to make your social media inclusive and accessible.
These are just reference keys.
So you will be able to continue to reference back and to get started with actionable ways to ensure everyone is included.
So to give you a little bit of background information about me your session host, I have been a Speech Language Pathologist for over 11 years.
And I switched to start my own business as the CEO of The Resource Key, which solely focused on inclusive and accessible marketing.
And my journey really started after listening to all of the children and adults that I worked with over the years, as well as observing and how each individual felt like they were not included in the community.
As well as I observed that with a lot of different children and adults that I work with, with different disabilities.
Marketing, I feel like has a huge impact on how we perceive things.
And that is why I found that The Resource Key to really change the narrative surrounding how people view people with disabilities, as well as ensuring inclusion and accessibility in marketing.
So, fun fact, I've worked across seven different industries over the years, ranging from hospitality to the funeral home industry.
And through those different experiences working in different industries, I feel that a lot of my perspective, and just how I view the world, and even from a business perspective has helped me to continue to grow.
And also utilize my experience in those different industries to contribute to my business.
I have Aphantasia, which, if you're not familiar with it, I am not able when I close my eyes, and if you say to visualize a horse running, I'm not able to bring those pictures up to be able to visualize that.
So that's the best way to be able to explain that a lot of people are able to close your eyes and visualize.
So they really, whenever anyone references Aphantasia a lot of times the definition would be image free thinking.
So I'm not able to create pictures of familiar objects, people or places in my mind's eye.
So like when I close my eyes and not able to bring up a picture of something.
I would definitely say I'm in program builder.
I love to build things. And so I think that carries over into a lot of the work that I do as well over the years and also at The Resource Key.
Alright, so here pictured on the screen are two different images. So one is a picture of a single key. And the other picture is a picture of multiple keys.
And I love these two different images because it really describes how I view accessibility.
A lot of times we think that accessibility would be from one angle so if I am able to get this then everything will be accessible.
And I would say my perspective was like that.
Based off of when I was doing direct speech therapy, a lot of times, depending on the individuals that I was working with, I would think from more of a single minded perspective.
So from the one key where, alright, if this person has these types of accommodation support, then that's it, and they may not need anything else.
And that's not how it is, in reality.
So really, just stepping outside of the therapy room has allowed me to shift my perspective as well.
And to see how many different keys that's why I love the image of the mailbox keys, and some of the mailboxes are closed, some of them are open with the different keys, because I really think accessibility.
There's so many different layers of accessibility in so many different aspects, and so many different types of disabilities, and no one disability presents exactly like the other.
And I think that's the same for accessibility, even though you may implement one area of accessibility into your business, if you go into maybe a different industry, you may have to adapt, or it may look a lot different.
So these are the keys, I like to call them.
Alright, so the Inclusive Keys.
So now we're at the image with the multiple piece hanging from the different mailboxes.
So the four areas that I always like to look at when I think of inclusive keys are alignment is number one.
Number two is access.
Number three is accountability.
And number four is attached.
So why did I choose those?
Well, the first one is alignment. So if you can think of a key, you really need to have it aligned with where you're unlocking, in order for that, the door to open or whatever you're trying to open.
So I think of that, as well as with accessibility, because everything is aligned.
So you can go into one area, and maybe you can have something be accessible.
But in order to truly have accessibility, you really need it embedded in every aspect of everything it needs to be aligned.
I like to think of it from a business standpoint, let's say if you go to a website, and the website is accessible, but if someone goes to apply for a job, and you send them to a external link for your job application site, that maybe he's a third party vendor, and that website is not accessible, then we have a disconnect in your processes not aligned.
So that's why I really think alignment is a huge key when we're talking about accessibility, because it really equates to how things are aligned.
Access. You know, that one goes without saying, in order for you to really ensure all people are included, they need to be able to have access to trainings at work, access to your social media posts.
Let's say you're posting a job opportunity on social media, and you don't include alternative text.
If someone is, let's say, blind and uses assistive technology, screen reader, screen readers are a form of assistive technology, if they they get to an image of your job posting and the alternative text is empty.
Well, it's going to scan that picture and there's not going to be any information for the person to know what exactly is included in that post.
So they're going to miss out and they're not going to have access to that information.
So access really, we have to look at all different components in all different areas when it comes to access.
The third one is accountability.
We really have to be accountable.
It's one thing for someone to tell us. Right?
You have to you know, do this by the end of the day.
But it's another thing for us to take the initiative and take the accountability to say hey, you know it is just as much as my job to be able to contribute and ensure that no one's left out.
And taking on that accountability, in the smallest of ways or the biggest of ways.
The fourth one is attached. So this one, a little bit goes back to alignment.
But when I think of attached, I think of just, it's ongoing, it just reminds me even of accessibility journey that you're always learning and you're always attaching something else.
To make an experience successful, or product accessible, whatever it may be, so you're, you're learning and attaching.
Nothing really ever is necessarily disconnecting, or you're not really taking something off, typically, a lot of times with accessibility, or at least in my experience, I've learned something and attached it on learn something, attach it.
So I continue to attach these different knowledge points to be able to continue my journey, learning and ensuring accessibility in all areas.
As well as I think that can go for maybe other areas too.
When we think of from a business perspective, you're trying to ensure at the end of the day, everything is attached with maybe your your best practices that you're using, or, or products or different areas that may be relevant to your business.
Great. So the social media keys that we are going to discuss today.
And they are pictured on the slide are hashtags, image descriptions, alternative text, color contrast, and by each word on this slide, there's a icon that represents each area of the social media cues that we'll be talking about.
So the first one, and I mentioned it before, but you also have your outline.
And there's some other resources that will be helpful when you're referencing the different areas to further your journey.
So for hashtag, today, we're going to talk about camel case.
And with CamelCase. It happens when you CamelCase something you're capitalizing the first letter of the word in a phrase or sentence without spaces.
So we'll separate the word when, let's say, the screen reader, which I know I described earlier, is a type of assistive technology.
So if someone that's using a screen reader, it could be someone that blind or has low vision, dyslexia. A lot of different individuals may use it a screen reader, but if the screen reader is you're using it, if someone's using the screen reader, and you have hashtags that are all lowercase, it's going to read as a run on, run on words.
So you want to be able to separate that out.
So how you do that is by utilizing the camel case for the hashtags.
And so that would be capitalizing the first letter of the words in a phrase or sentence.
And I'll give you an example of this, as well, by referencing a post on The Resource Key mentor demo Instagram page.
So here you can see on The Resource Key mentor demo page, I'm going to there's The Resource Key hashtag is used.
And as you can see, everything's lowercase.
So if that was a screen reader, were to read that it would all be a run on.
So that's an example of me not using camel case for hashtags.
So if I go and click out of here, and go to this next post, on the demo Instagram page, you'll see the hashtag The Resource Key again, but this time, the T in the R in Resource and the K in Key is capitalized.
And so that would be a good example of camel case.
So now when the screen reader is reading that aloud, to the person that is utilizing the screen reader, it will have everything as separate so read it correctly,The Resource Key.
That's an example of using camel case, for hashtag.
In the next area that we are going to look out for the social media keys are alternative text, also known as alt text.
Alt text provides the most important details of a picture.
I'll show you in this example, we are on the demo page. And let's click on this.
So if I click on this first post, and I click on the three dots in the upper right hand corner, I click on edit.
Accessibility, I'm going to click on and then if this you can see where you can add the alt text.
And keep in mind I'm doing this from a desktop computer. But and this is on Instagram.
So if there's no alt text, when a screen reader goes to read aloud what is pictured on this photo, the alt text, or the alternative texts will be read as empty.
So the person using the screen reader technology will not be able to know what is pictured on this Instagram post.
So it's important, it's been really beneficial, so that no one gets left out of your social media to use all tests and make sure you add it.
So this is the area that you would add the alternative tests and like I said, keep in mind, I'm using a desktop computer from your phone, I have a one Instagram, I'm pulling it up, just so that I can explain as well.
So on your phone, if you're accessing Instagram, and you look at the pictures, there's three dots at the top right hand corner on there, and you can press Edit, alternative text.
And there's a place where you can type in your alternative text.
So I'm going to go to a post that has alternative text.
So this post has alternative text and look alternative text, click on the three buttons, the three dots at the top right hand corner.
And here I can see accessibility I scroll down.
And remember like alternative text, when you type it in, it's usually if you could summarize the picture, what's happening in this picture, that's the best way to describe it.
So for this picture, a person is pouring milk into a mug, preparing a latte with a heart.
So that was the alternative text that I use for this image.
And keep in mind, it's a journey with all this but just if you get started, it's very helpful, because you'll learn different beneficial techniques for writing alternative texts along your journey.
Great and then for this image, I have alternative text as well.
So if you can think of alternative text is like the summary of whatever the photo is, is representing.
So giving if someone needed a quick summary of what was in the photo, that's what you would want to include in the alternative text or alt text.
The next social media key we are going to discuss is image description and image description.
What is the difference a lot of times people ask between image description and alternative text.
So the best way that I can that I always describe it is image description describes the images within your content, but it is a longer description of images and just present it with more details and alternative text.
So in if I go to the resource key demo page again on the Instagram, if I click on this image, the same image we use for the coffee mug, the image description I put in brackets.
Sometimes you'll also see the image description as ID as abbreviation I always write it out just because I always assume that this could be the first time someone interacting with my social media.
And they may not know what Id mean, in reference to what my social media pages.
So I always like to write out the image description instead of abbreviating it, but some people do do ID.
And there's nothing wrong with that either, because then you have a description after that.
The other thing is here, I have the, whatever I wanted to post the message, and then I add the image description underneath.
So if you have something you want to write, prior to putting the image description, then you can do that here.
So for this image, I put person holding stainless steel milk frother in the air with one hand, pouring trough milk into my to make latte with art.
And the other hand, the person is holding handle of the mug, behind the mug as a table.
So you can, you can hear the image descriptions a lot longer.
The alternative text was just a quick overview of what the photo was about.
The other thing I want to mention is sometimes if you do not have enough room to put custom images, image descriptions are a lot longer.
If you don't have enough room to put it in your caption, then you can include it in the comment section.
So you may see that a lot of times on social media posts as well, where the image description is included in the comment sections on maybe on some of the different platforms.
And like I said, you'll continue to learn more and more about different things.
But this is just how you get started. I do both alternative text and image description because I never know what a person is utilizing in terms of if they're going to use turn of text or the image description.
So for me best practice, I always just include both.
When you learn more about the different platforms, you'll you know, learn more about how you can add in different places and how everything is set up.
This is a tool that I use to check the color contrast for all my social media posts.
And like I said, accessibility is a journey, I don't always check every one now just because I have in mind sometimes what is a good color contrast, based off of the different social media posts.
Alright, so I this is called Webaim.org.
I included it on your outline.
So you can just click on the link, if you want to play around with the tool later.
So here what it has is contrast checkers. So the foreground color the color that's in the front.
And it shows you an example here as well.
That is the color that I use for the post that was difficult to read.
So that was the text color that I use.
And then the background color was this purple color.
And it will tell you the contrast ratio here underneath those two boxes.
It so this for this one, it's 1.28 it tells you the ratio of it and it will tell you if it passes or fails.
And WCAG is the abbreviation that's here WCAG AAA and that is the stands for Website Content Accessibility Guidelines.
The A's are the conformance success levels. So this is what it's aligned to so it has would have been as the double A and triple A.
And so it's telling you that based off of those website content accessibility guidelines and so this color contrasts that would be insufficient and would fail as a very low contrast ratio.
You now have the numbers for the other color contrast that I had that was sufficient.
So I'll enter those numbers here.
So the color in the front for the text was I'm entering it now.
So bear with me oops All right, so that's the first one and then the background color was.
Alright, so as you can see, this would be the contrast ratio was 8.91 for this one, and it passed.
So a lot higher contrast ratio, then the previous color the colors that I had before.
And if you're wondering, Where do you get the color numbers from?
So that's a great question.
So if it's a post that has already been posted, and maybe I want to check the color contrast, I use an app and I have an iPhone, called Color Picker AR it's free.
And pretty much upload the picture and then lock the picture in and then you can use a cursor to scroll over the colors, and it will bring up the color number.
And that's what you input in for the background color and the foreground color.
What I like about this too, is it shows you how it looks as well, for this website, tool, right.
So that's how you can get the number if you already have maybe posted an image, I will show you in Canva how you can do it.
So I'm going to stop sharing, and then go into Canva and show you for anyone that creates their own content.
Alright, so here we are in Canva. And as you can see, I have a demo page up here.
So the background is this purplish color, and then the key is pinkish color.
So if I want to change that, then I would click on the color.
If I have a background color in mind, I'm going to pull the background color that passed for the contrast checker.
So I will copy the background color.
And I would insert it where it says try blue or number, so you would insert it in the search bar and then paste, right click and paste.
And then it will pull up that exact color.
So that's what's nice about this tool as well.
Now I want to change the foreground color for the key.
So I'm going to go back and you're only seeing the Canva. But I'm copying the color number for the foreground color.
And then same thing, I'll paste the color number in.
And there we have it.
So the background now is black and then the foreground color for the key is like a lighter purple.
So that's how you do it if you use Canva.
And then that's how you'd be able to use those numbers that past the color contrast from the tool that we use to be able to put it into Canva for your posts.
Alright, so we are going to stop there. That was the last social media key that we were going to repeat to them.
Since we are wrapping up I want to go through the last few PowerPoint slides.
So one of the quotes that I absolutely love, especially when it comes to accessibility, journey, inclusion, diversity, all of those different things is this quote by Kat Holmes.
It's an excerpt from this mismatch by Kat Holmes. And the quote says, and include exclusion habit.
An exclusion habit is the belief that whoever starts the game also sets the rules of the game, we think we don't have power to change a game.
So we abdicate our accountability, we keep repeating the same behaviors over and over.
And I love this quote, because it just reinforces the power of no matter how small or big in terms of changes regarding implementing inclusion and accessibility.
You can start today you don't have we have the power, each one of us has the power so we can change the game by taking accountability and just starting and doing something small, and then building on that.
Thank you for joining me today.
So by now, you may be thinking, all right, I want to take the information that you gave me and start to implement it.
And I think that's a great start.
And this session, I provided four different ways that you can make your social media more inclusive and accessible.
