Social Media

Overview

If you communicate on behalf of UO via the university's social media channels, you should strive to make your content as accessible as possible. Social media is an important part of our outreach to prospective students and employees, and increases engagement with current UO students, alumni, employees, and athletics fans.

People consume social media in many different ways. Some people primarily use mobile applications, while others use web-based versions of these platforms. Because there are so many ways to view this content, and because we don't have control over the implementation of these platforms, we need to be diligent about what we can control, to make our social presence as accessible as possible.

This guide explains how to make our content as accessible as possible, and ways to provide more accessible alternatives, when appropriate.

Images

  • Add alternative text for images using the alt text feature of the social media platform. Review guidelines on accessible images to learn about alternative text.
  • Don't put alternative text or written description of images (other than for images of text, described below) in the post text itself, unless the platform doesn't allow alt text.
  • Avoid images of text. If this is absolutely required for branding purposes or due to platform limitations (e.g., Instagram posts), include that same text as alt text for the image. If the text is more than a few words, include it as plain text in the post and use the alt text to provide a brief title for the image. Also ensure that there is sufficient contrast between the text and background colors.
  • Do not use animated gifs. Users must be able to pause, stop, or hide all animations, and social media platforms do not typically include that functionality for animated gifs. Additionally, alternative text is insufficient for describing complex animations and video clips.

Emoji

  • Standard Unicode emojis are automatically described by screen readers (software that turns visual content into audio), though different screen readers may vary in the exact description they provide. Do not add alt text to standard emojis.
  • Limit how many emoji you use in one place. Repeating the same emoji multiple times in a row to emphasize the sentiment might be cute to some sighted users, but it can be cumbersome and annoying, particularly for someone using a screen reader. Long strings of multiple different emojis should also be avoided, for similar reasons.
    • Bad (repeated emoji): Congratulations to our new grads! πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰ (read out by the JAWS screen reader as "congratulations to our new grads party popper party popper party popper party popper")
    • Good (one emoji): Congratulations to our new grads! πŸŽ‰
    • Bad (many emoji): Learn more about UO research πŸ”¬πŸ”­πŸ§ͺ🧫πŸ₯ΌπŸ‘©πŸΎβ€πŸ”¬ (read out by the NVDA screen reader as "learn more about UO research microscope telescope test tube petri dish lab coat woman scientist medium dark skin tone")
    • Good (fewer emoji): Learn more about UO research πŸ”¬
  • Avoid putting emojis in the middle of a sentence.
    • Bad (mid-sentence): Check out the new πŸ¦† Duck Life website (read out by JAWS as "check out the new duck duck life website")
    • Good (end of sentence): Check out the new Duck Life website πŸ¦†
  • Don't use emoticons or ASCII art (pictures made up of a string of symbols and other characters). Screen readers may read out each character individually, making them nearly impossible to understand. For example:
    • Bad (emoticon): :-) is read out by the JAWS screen reader as "colon dash right paren"
    • Good (emoji): πŸ™‚ is read out by JAWS as "slightly smiling face"
    • Bad (emoticon): Β―\_(ツ)_/Β― is read out by JAWS as "macron backslash underline left paren right paren underline slash macron"
    • Good (emoji): 🀷🏽 is read out by JAWS as "shrug medium skin tone"

Hashtags

  • Most social media platforms use hashtags (text following a hash mark, like #OregonBound). Hashtags that include multiple words can be difficult for many people visually reading the text, including those with dyslexia, as well as for those who rely on screen readers. To make it easier, type hashtags in CamelCase. CamelCase is formatting your hashtag so that the first letter of each word is capitalized and the rest of each word is lowercase, making it both easier to read visually and making it possible for screen readers to read it out correctly.
    • Bad (all lowercase or all uppercase): #thisishardtoread or #THISISHARDTOREAD (read out by NVDA as a single word that sounds like "this-eh-shard-toe-red")
    • Good (CamelCase): #ThisIsEasierToRead (read out correctly as separate words by NVDA)

Videos and Animated Images

  • Ensure that videos are properly captioned (automatically generated captions need to be reviewed and edited for accuracy) and that meaningful visuals are described verbally.
  • Ensure that videos and animations (e.g., animated gifs) don't flash rapidly, as that can induce seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy, and can also result in migraines, nausea, and dizziness for others.
  • Video and audio should not automatically play. Some platforms default to autoplay being on, but allow you to toggle it off when uploading your media. If your platform does not allow autoplay to be toggled off, consider embedded a video from another source (like YouTube or Vimeo) that doesn't play automatically.

Platform-Specific Guidance

Social media platforms change their content editing interfaces regularly. Refer to platform-specific documentation for more information.

Additional Resources