Designing with Accessibility in Mind

Designing with
Accessibility In Mind
(3-Hour)

What is accessibility? Why does it matter?

To reach the widest audience, content creators and designers are responsible for ensuring that digital and print assets are as accessible as possible. Together, we identify the most common content-related barriers and overcome them with design decisions that free your creativity rather than restrict it because the ‘content needs to be accessible.’

This session covers accessibility guidelines for designing accessible content. We review specific graphic examples of real-world content. We break down accessibility guidelines in easy-to-understand terms for things like bar charts, pie graphs, line graphs, simple infographics, complex infographics, flow charts, process charts, aerial photos, maps, site plans, and basic project photography. 

Learn proper color contrast, colorblind design best practices, how to generate effective alternate descriptions, and additional design methods beyond the use of color alone to reduce cognitive barriers.

Enhance Your Skills

• Be introduced to accessibility basics, including compliance standards you need to know
• Dive into barriers and how to overcome them in the design software you use, including programs from Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Canva, and more
• Gain insight into how to overcome common pitfalls in the use of fonts, styles, structural relationships, images, charts, and more
• Grasp how to inject accessibility into your current workflow and avoid the dangers of adding in "accessibility at the end"
• Improve your accessible design skills for images, charts, tables, forms, and more
• Learn how to write effective alt text descriptions
• Explore techniques to make your social media and video assets more accessible

Accessibility Handouts

• 10 Tips for Writing Accessibly
• Accessible Social Media Best Practices
• Top 10 Accessible Table Tips
• Tips for Writing Effective Alt-Text
• InDesign Color Contrast Plugin (a $150 value for free)