Writing accessible content

Users interact with text differently online than they do in print, and most people tend to scan website text to find what information is relevant to them.

For this reason, it's important to make text content clear, concise and easy to navigate with headings and shorter chunks of text.

Clear and concise

Write using plan English in short, clear sentences and paragraphs.

Avoid the use of complex words and phrases that wouldn't be familiar to a wider audience.

Expand on any acronyms when they're first used.

Swap e.g., i.e. etc. for the full words 'for example', 'that is', 'and so on'. 

Keep word counts to a minimum

Emphasise text using bold

Avoid BLOCK CAPITALS, italics and underlining when emphasising text. Instead, make them bold.

People with dyslexia can find italicised words harder to read as the letters may have a jagged outline and can seem to run together.

However, some scientific terms need to use italics.

Use images to break up bigger blocks of text

Adhere to guidelines on accessible images and how to create Alternative Text.

Keeping content on a page to a minimum

Accessbility of content for all users is our priority and putting great amounts of content on one page will have a negative effect on accessibility. 

Also most content is accessed on mobile phones and we would encourage you to break the content up into an easy access format.