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Create Accessible Content

Creating accessible content means ensuring that the words, images, media, documents, and data presented to users can be perceived, understood, and interacted with by people with disabilities. This includes both the raw content (e.g., text, visuals, captions) and the formats in which that content is delivered.

Role in the ENABLE Model​

This is the second pre-launch intervention in the ENABLE model. It focuses on ensuring the core material being shared or rendered is inclusive before it's placed inside any user interface or application. Without accessible content, even the most technically accessible interface can fail its users.

Why It Matters​

Content is the substance of any communication -- whether it's a website, a form, an educational resource, or a government alert. If the content itself is unreadable, non-navigable, or lacks alternative formats, people with disabilities are left behind, no matter how well the surrounding platform is built.

Examples​

  • Using plain language for cognitive accessibility
  • Providing alt text for images and charts
  • Offering transcripts and captions for audio and video
  • Supplying accessible data visualizations or alternative summaries
  • Structuring documents semantically for screen reader navigation
  • Ensuring math content is compatible with MathML or spoken math engines

Care Sounds Like​

“We must include a representative sample of people who stutter in our AI training dataset.”
“Our slide deck must include alt text for all images.”
“Let's produce a transcript and a plain language summary alongside this podcast.”
“This table looks great, but does it make sense when read aloud line by line?”

Neglect Sounds Like​

“The visuals are self-explanatory, no need to describe them.”
“We don't have time to caption this.”
“Just PDF the scan and upload it.”
“We already wrote it once, why would we rewrite it in plain language?”

Real-World Scenario​

A federal agency releases a critical COVID-19 vaccination guide as a PDF, but it's an image-only scan without text recognition or tagging. Screen reader users cannot access it. As a result, blind individuals cannot easily learn how, when, or where to get vaccinated. This wasn't a technical bug -- it was inaccessible content.

Manifestations​

  • NBCUniversal Media proactively adds captions and extended audio description to every Olympic livestream before broadcast as part of their accessibility plan.
  • Accessible EDU Consulting is hired by campus teams to audit and fix course sites before the semester, preventing inaccessible syllabi from reaching students.