Writing for accessibility best practices

These tips are curated for Guru from Contented's Certificate in Accessible Writing course. Follow these guidelines to write content that's accessible to more people across Guru (and the web), and to help Guru reach our accessibility goals.

General text formatting guidelines

Consider the following guidelines when authoring Guru Cards and Slack messages to make them more accessible. Guru has many built-in tools (like formatting) that make these guidelines easy to follow.

• Use pre-built text formatting (H1, paragraph, numbered lists, etc.) when possible

  • These are built with rigid structures on purpose. Don't try to customize them.

• Always left-align text to increase readability and orderliness

• White space helps people skim and read better. Some ways to add more white space to increase readability include:

  • Add sub-headlines

  • Vary length of items in a list

  • Vary sentence lengths

  • Use proper punctuation (built-in white space)

• Avoid the following when possible:

  • Underlined text (implies a link)

  • Colored text

  • All-caps text

  • "Clutter marks" (colon, semi-colon, hyphen), which imply "heavy reading ahead"

Creating perceivable content

Creating content that's perceivable by everyone is one of the core principles of accessible writing. This means that information should be presented in ways that make it possible for everyone to see, hear, or otherwise perceive, regardless of a disabilities.

• Provide text alternatives for any non-text content (for example, a detailed caption for a video in a Card)

  • If important information is only presented in non-text formats, consider how someone with a disability would access it

  • Avoid using emojis to portray meaning that isn't otherwise identified (for example, don't use the Slack logo emoji in place of the word "Slack"—put them side-by-side, if you really need the emoji

• Use descriptive text to link to other places

  • Any link with the text "click here" is automatically inaccessible

• Any time-based media might need additional accessibility supplements

  • For example, a recording with a transcription of a live webinar

Creating understandable content

Creating content that can be read and understood by the intended audience is another core principle of accessible writing.

• Always write in plain language. A good test is: "could a 13-year-old easily read, understand, and use this information?"

• Be predictable. Keep items in the same order, avoid switching between words that mean the same thing (i.e. "knowledge" vs. "information"), and start Cards with a summary where necessary.

• Make sure CTA buttons are extremely clear, so users know where they are going next

Overall, we should always be aiming to make our writing clear, predictable, and accessible to everyone—regardless of disability. This is a learning process for our entire team, so don't hesitate to reach out as you work on new content. For guidance on writing accessible product copy, please visit the UX writing style guide.