Accessibility & Inclusion

Accessibility is typically only thought about in relation to people with dis­abil­i­ties. But at Hudl, you can’t have usability without acces­si­bil­i­ty. We write to be accessible for everyone.

And, in fact, people aren’t disabled: it’s the lack of design that disables people. If we don’t design our content appro­pri­ate­ly, we’re disabling our customers in the choices they can make and the actions they can take.

In a lot of ways, making content accessible is simplifying it and making it easier to read. But that doesn’t mean you’re dumbing it down. It’s making a thoughtful decision to simplify in order to help people save time when consuming the content. Don’t worry — it can still be just as engaging!

Designing content with acces­si­bil­i­ty in mind means:

• Including space
• Using headings and subheadings
• Relying on concise sentences
• Writing in plain language

When we don’t design our content with acces­si­bil­i­ty in mind, our content can become attached to feelings of pain or discomfort for the reader. Increasing the time it takes for someone to find the information they need is painful. Locking audio content in a video without captions or a transcript is painful. Excluding large groups of people by using complicated words and obscure idioms is painful.

There’s an entire spectrum of access needs that exist for our audiences. Whether it be temporary, situational or permanent, everyone has different needs. We aim to write for all of those.