We have a responsibility to make our web information accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of their ability, means or technology. Our designers create templates with appropriate colours and text styles to aid with this.

You can help to maintain good accessibility for your online audience by following a few guidelines when creating your text and media content.

These principles will maximise the accessibility of your text:

• Use clear and accurate headings and hyperlink descriptions.
• Use plain English, and short, simple words (eg "begin" rather than "commence"; "try" rather than "endeavour").
• Be brief. Short sentences and paragraphs are absorbed more readily. Use bulleted lists and sub-headings to break up long chunks of text and help avoid long sentences.
• Use the active voice: it uses fewer words and is easier to read than the passive voice (eg "The community built the school" rather than "The school was built by the community").
• Use the present tense where possible to convey the message clearly.
• Avoid slang, jargon and specialised meanings of familiar words (eg we use "transformation" to mean a certain set of changes in circumstance and experience, but a reader might not get it).
• Italicise any non-English words so that screen readers can read them properly.

The good news is that many of the principles that make content accessible also make it web-friendly.

Some readers, whether visually impaired or on a slow internet connection, cannot access multimedia online. We need to use text to fill in the gaps.

Visually impaired visitors use digital readers to interpret web pages. Digital readers find the words used to describe an image to create the picture for the user.

When adding images to a page or story, make sure that any words used to describe them make sense to a reader:

• Create a descriptive, sensible filename for the image you're uploading, separating the words with hyphens (eg not "pic000201" but "Philippines-flood-aid-kits").
• Write a brief but descriptive caption.
• Create descriptive, sensible "alternative text" for the image. "Alt text" is included in the HTML code to provide a description of the image when it is unable to be viewed. It should describe the image and include any text shown as a part of the image.

Not sure what to write? Ask yourself, would a user be able to visualise the image you've uploaded if they had to rely on the text?

So that users understand when they're about to download a file (rather than go to a new page), it's important to make it clear that a link goes to a PDF. Please follow the link to the PDF with the text "(pdf)". For example:

Find out more about punctuation in World Vision’s language guide (pdf).

• "Introduction to web accessibility", W3C, 2005
• "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2 at a Glance", W3C, 2011
• "What Is Web Accessibility?", by Trenton Moss, 2004