Being Accessible in Your Communications
Event Details:
Session Description:
As a professional communicator, you work hard to craft messages that connect with audiences around the world. According to the World Health Organization’s World Health Report on Disability, about 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, or about one billion people worldwide. The issue with accessibility being an afterthought is that most regions worldwide, like North America, Europe, and Asia, have accessibility legislation in place, where it’s the law to make your content accessible. If your documents, website, and social media content aren’t accessible, you’re telling disabled people they don’t matter and, potentially, not abiding by your country’s legislation. But where do you even begin? When it comes to accessibility, it’s progress over perfection. In this interactive session, we’re going to show how you can create accessible social media and web content and provide you with the basics of accessible document strategies.
Communication can deepen connections and boast inclusion, diversity, and equality while being equitable, but only when the content is accessible to everyone.
Join Matisse Hamel-Nelis as she presents her hit IABC World Conference session on accessible communications. You’ll learn to:
- Describe how inaccessible content is experienced by people using assistive technology.
- Demonstrate how to check documents for accessibility before publishing or sharing them internally or externally.
- Know basic ways to start creating accessible web and social media content including alternative text, colour contrast, font choices, link text and web page structure.
About the Speakers:
Matisse Hamel-Nelis is VP of Communications for AbleDocs, and professor in Durham College’s PR & Strategic Communications program. She is also the Vice President, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) for IABC/Toronto and the Chair of the IABC Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee.
An international award-winner, she is best described as a strategic, forward-thinking communicator focused on goal-oriented social PR with accessibility at the fore. She has designations through the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) as a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) and Accessible Documents Specialist (ADS).