Disability is not a dirty word
When Lizzo used an ableist slur in one of her songs, she was called out. She listened, apologised and took action (re-recording her song, without the slur).
If we want to be more inclusive and accessible, Lizzo gives us a great example.
In this article, I’ll cover three steps you can take to help dismantle ableism, starting with your words.
1. Get clear about disability
Understand what disability is, and how ableism works.
2. Get accurate
Change our language and the stories we tell about disability, so we’re more accurate.
3. Get accessible
Learn how to create digital content that works for everybody, whether they’re disabled or not.
Step one: get clear on what disability is.
1. Get clear about disability
If you think disabilities are in the body, that’s the medical model of disability. It says:
People are disabled by cognitive, physical or motor differences or impairments.
The “problem” is in their body.
People can be mildly or severely disabled, depending on how far their body is from a “normal” body (normal tends to mean an idealised White, European, cisgender man’s body).
Personally, not a fan. Because disability is contextual. You can feel highly disabled in one setting, and not at all disabled in another setting. That’s why I love the social model.
The social model of disability says:
People are disabled by structures. A wheelchair user is disabled by design choices, like buildings without ramps.
The problem is social systems, not people’s bodies.
Disability is a mismatch between a person and the environment they’re in.
One more time: the person isn’t the problem. The problem is the mismatch between them and their environment.
Disability is common
You’d think disability was rare – and terrible – from the stories we tell. We dehumanise disabled people through inspiration porn. Or code them as villains and monsters.
But disability is common! It’s a normal part of human experience.
More than 1 in 5 of us are disabled. And when we count mental health conditions as disabilities (which we should), that rises to more like 1 in 4 of us.
Disablism is a tragedy
Globally, most disabled people are unemployed or underemployed.
In some places, disabled people can’t marry or live with a partner (without losing essential support), and it’s legal to pay disabled people less than non-disabled people.
Disabled people are at much higher risk of violence than non-disabled people.
That’s shameful. But it’s disablism that’s shameful, not being disabled.
Defining disablism
Personally, I say:
Disablism when I’m talking about discrimination against disabled people.
Ableism when I’m talking about discrimination in favour of non-disabled people.
But a lot of people use ableism and disablism interchangeably, to talk about the oppression of disabled people.
And while we’re doing definitions, have you heard of #A11y? Many people think it means “ally” but it’s actually shorthand for accessibility.
You can’t tell if someone is disabled
Some disabilities are apparent, like having a visible tremor. Some are non-apparent, like chronic pain.
Personally, I call them “apparent” and “non-apparent” (not invisible or hidden) disabilities.
“Hidden” can sound like people are hiding or concealing something about themselves.
“Invisible disabilities” can suggest that the people themselves are invisible.
Try not to police other people’s disability status (“they don’t look disabled”). You simply can’t tell. If they want to tell you, they’ll tell you.
Disability is dynamic
Disability is highly contextual. I’ve felt highly disabled in some settings (like not being allowed to use voice dictation, in a quiet corner of a library) but five minutes later, I can leave that setting and I’m not disabled by it any more.
A lot of disabilities are dynamic. Maybe you can walk without an aid some days, but then you need days to recover afterwards. Or your chronic pain condition flares up sometimes, and is more manageable other times. Or perhaps you can perform complex tasks in the morning, but by the end of the day you’re out of spoons (exhausted).
Not all disabilities are well-understood
Another reason you can’t tell who’s disabled is because of how little research and understanding there is into a lot of conditions.
“Administrators are quick to make spurious diagnoses of stigmatized and criminalized disabilities for students of color” writes Lydia X. Z. Brown in We can’t address disability without addressing race. “They’re also far less likely to accurately identify learning and developmental disabilities when actually present in the same population.”
Take autism, for example. It’s diagnosed much quicker in White boys and young men than people of colour or people of other genders. Research suggests, autism shows up differently in women (and people assigned female at birth).
Often, what we think we know about a condition is just one story from many possible stories. We need to practice asking: whose story is heard, and whose is ignored? Why?
Disability affects nearly everyone
Let’s say you’re non-disabled (abled). It’s probably not forever. If you’re lucky enough to live into old age, you’ll experience disability. It’s probably more accurate to say you’re temporarily non-disabled (or abled).
Impairment affects everyone
If you’re non-disabled now, you still experience temporary and situational impairments.
Maybe, like me, you watch TV while texting while tweeting while internet shopping.
Almost half of us text while on the toilet (sorry). We can do that because of accessible UX design – we don’t need two hands available to text.
An impairment isn’t necessarily a problem, until design disables us.
Just like being blind isn’t a problem, until we’re disabled by images with no alt text.
Microsoft’s persona spectrum is a really helpful tool for understanding this. Whether we’re holding a newborn or trying to hear someone speak to us in a noisy room, we all have accessibility needs.
A chart showing a variety of impairments, organised by whether they’re permanent, temporary or situational. We see examples for the senses touch, sight, hearing and speech. Across the top row, titled touch, we have a cartoon figure and text that says one arm (permanent impairment), arm injury (temporary) and newborn, holding a baby (situational). The second row is sight. We see figures representing permanent, temporary and situational vision impairments: a blind person with dark glasses and cane, someone with cataracts, and a distracted driver. On the hearing row, we see figures who are deaf, someone with an ear infection, and a bartender in a noisy bar. For speech, there’s someone who’s non-verbal, someone with laryngitis, and a person with a heavy accent, signified by a cartoon Viking.
Maybe accessibility is just usability
“Maybe we are all, to a greater or lesser degree, impaired all of the time” says Molly Ford-Williams in an Inclusive Design 24 talk about accessibility, “through a combination of the situation we find ourselves in and the tasks we are trying to undertake.”
Molly asks: is there much difference between a temporary experience (like trying to order a Deliveroo when you’re drunk) and a lifelong one (like having a cognitive disability)?
Accessibility helps everyone
Ever spoken to a voice assistant like Siri, pressed a touchscreen button, or used cruise control?
They were all designed by and for disabled people, then went mainstream. It’s called the curb cut effect. The history of countless ingenious inventions like typewriters and eye-tracking software is the history of disabled creators and dreamers.
Accessible content is just good content
If your content disables people, it’s not working. But if you make your content accessible, we all win.
Alt text, for example:
Shows up if an image doesn’t download properly,
Boosts SEO,
Helps blind and partially-sighted users.
And simple writing:
Helps people who are cognitively disabled,
Is easier to read if you’re tired or distracted,
Works better for neurodivergent folks,
Saves everybody time.
Treat accessibility as an essential element of good content. If we treat it like an add-on, we’re in danger of neglecting it.
So we’ve explained what disability is. Now how do we talk accurately about it?
2 Get accurate - change our language and our stories
Labels like “high functioning” and “low functioning” can trap people.
If you’re labelled high functioning, you may not get the support you need, leading to burnout, danger, harm, then you’re seen as incompetent.
If you’re labelled “low functioning”, you may not get taken seriously or given opportunities to challenge yourself and grow.
Consider this story about two autistic children called Alex and John. They have very different strengths and support needs. Applying a binary label to either of them is misleading.
Try to be specific. Are you talking about their confidence with independent tasks, meeting new people, speaking? Say what the access need is, and what support helps them.
Don’t compliment people for seeming non-disabled
“Wow, you’re disabled! I never would have guessed, you seem so high-functioning.”
Many disabled people mask (go to enormous efforts to fit in with an ableist society). That comes at a huge cost to them and their health.
Praising them for those efforts sends a bleak message about the value we put on disabled people (“Be yourself but also don’t let anyone know your real needs”).
If we keep disablist barriers in place, while praising disabled people for seeming non-disabled, we’re asking them to destroy their own wellbeing. We have to dismantle the barriers instead.
How to talk about disability
There are two main ways to talk about disability (and other parts of identity):
Person-first language, and
Identity-first language.
Person-first language
Person-first language looks like this:
I’m a person with disabilities.
Elena, a person who is Deaf.
They have hypermobility.
Identity-first language
Identity-first language looks like this:
I’m disabled.
Elena’s Deaf.
They’re hypermobile.
In some parts of the world, like Australia, South Africa and the USA, person-first language is strongly preferred (with big exceptions, like autistic, blind and Deaf/deaf people).
In the UK, where I live, most disabled people use identity-first language. (And by “most” I mean a lot more than half. As far as I know, I’ve only met one disabled person in the UK, who uses person-first language.)
Why don’t people agree on which one to use?
Identity-first language
Some people use identity-first language (“disabled person”) because it shows:
How important your disability is (“disabled” comes first).
You can’t separate your disability from who you are.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of or distance yourself from.
Being disabled is something you “are”, not something you “have.”
Person-first language
Some people use person-first language (“person with disabilities”) because it shows:
You are a person first (“person” comes first, followed by your condition or disability)
Your disability doesn’t define you.
A disability is something you “have”, not something you “are.”
Two different approaches. Both totally valid.
Why I use identity-first language
Personally, identity-first language (“I’m disabled”) feels more accurate to me when talking about disability.
No criticism if you use person-first language, it’s just not my choice.
To me, person-first language (“person with disabilities”) sounds like saying: “they’re a person and – gasp - they’re also disabled. What a shame.”
As Lydia X. Z. Brown says:
“What we are saying when we say "person with autism" is that the person would be better off if not Autistic, and that it would have been better if he or she had been born typical.
"If you have to put the word 'person' first to remind yourself that we're people, you really have a problem, not us […] If you have to go through linguistic gymnastics to remind yourself that we're people, you already didn't believe we were people.”
Language and stigma
There’s also some research to suggest that person-first language could increase stigma.
Why use person-first language for disability, but not for any other part of our identities?
As rose iris theodosia elysium writes, in an article about person-first language isolating disabled people:
“Using person-first language for disability alone, while still using identity-first language for most other traits, separates disability from other social identities. It dissuades disabled people from identifying as disabled, even as many of us feel this is central to who we are.”
Or as Jim Sinclair puts it, in Why I Dislike Person-First Language:
“We describe people's cultural and religious identifications in terms such as "Russian" or "Catholic," not as "person with Russianity" or "person with Catholicism." We describe important aspects of people's social roles in terms such as "parent" or "worker," not as "person with offspring" or "person who has a job." We describe important aspects of people's personalities in terms such as "generous" or "outgoing," not as "person with generosity" or "person with extroversion."
Disabled people don’t need humanising
We don’t all agree on how to talk about disability (or, you know, anything). But there are lots of helpful things you can do when you’re talking about disability, which can help make the world more inclusive.
Name disability
Phrases like “special needs” are euphemisms. Euphemisms sugar-coat ideas that we think are shameful. But there’s nothing wrong with disability.
Disability is not a dirty word. You can #SayTheWord.
Avoid euphemisms
If you would not use “differently raced,” “differently gendered,” or “differently aged” to refer to someone with lived experience different from your own, ask yourself why you may default to “differently abled” in reference to an individual or group with disability” writes Caroline J. Mailloux.
I love Caroline’s provocation: if you wouldn’t say it about other identities, why say it about disability?
Be specific
When we’re embarrassed, we often say vague things. Like saying “down there” instead of “vulva” or “vagina.”
Vague language fuels stigma and makes it harder for people to get the support they need.
Consider saying: She has a chronic pain condition.
Avoid saying: She’s got some kind of pain problem.
Being accurate also shows dignity and respect.
People aren’t “confined” to wheelchairs - it’s more accurate to say they’re liberated by them. It’s pretty patronising to say people “suffer” from their disabilities. And “victim” is misleading (it can sound like someone has died). Use clear, standard language instead.
Consider saying: Uses a wheelchair, has Parkinson’s, has cancer, had a stroke/is a stroke survivor.
Avoid saying: Confined to a wheelchair, afflicted with Parkinson’s, a cancer victim, suffered a stroke.
Disabled bodies are good bodies
What’s the opposite of disabled?
Non-disabled, or
Abled.
I don’t say “able-bodied” personally. Disabled bodies are perfectly good bodies.
We need new stories
The stories we tell about marginalised groups have a real impact.
They affect how we imagine people’s lives, and abilities. They shape our expectations of and treatment of those people.
“The erasure of disabled people is one of the most common international crimes against humanity” – Sandy Ho.
Consider the film industry, where ableism is alive and well.
“Disability drag” is when non-disabled actors play disabled characters. And it tends to win them awards.
Since 1947, out of 59 nominations for disabled characters, 27 won an Academy Award – about a 50% win rate.
These characters are often stereotypical. Magda Romanska notes that disabled characters tend to be limited to four types:
the “magical cripple,”
the “evil cripple,”
the “inspirational cripple”, and
the “redemptive cripple.”
These narrow stereotypes limit disabled people, and they limit non-disabled people too: because they’re closed off from the reality of just how rich disabled people’s lives are.
Steer clear of superheroes
Most autistic people are not like Rain Man.
I’m really happy for your if your disability feels like a superpower. But a lot of the time, saying “your autism/ADHD/dyslexia is a superpower” fetishizes disabled people, without offering support.
“Disability is not a brave struggle or ‘courage in the face of adversity.’ Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live” – Neil Marcus.
Avoid inspiration porn
A supercrip is a disabled character with seemingly magical abilities. They achieve remarkable things “despite everything” or “against all the odds.” They use disability as a shorthand for resilience.
Disabled people are not your inspiration porn. It’s true that disabled people are inspiring. But disabled people don’t overcome their disabilities; they overcome disablism.
Don’t say: “Stephen Hawking, who overcame his disabilities to become a world-renowned physicist.”
Do say: Stephen Hawking overcame disablism to become a world-renowned physicist..
Let disabled people be normal
It’s exhausting to carry the weight of other people’s expectations and “being an inspiration for others.”
Many of us would like the privilege of just being normal. Let disabled people be flawed, unremarkable and disappointing, like everyone else.
Use more creative insults
If something is wildly ill-conceived, bizarrely out of touch, flamboyantly impractical or straight-up bizarre, it’s so much more interesting to say this, than to fall back on ableist words like “dumb” or “lame.”
The best insults are wildly specific, memorable and true. Ableist slurs are vague, inaccurate and they harm disabled people.
Need inspiration? Here are some wonderful rare insults.
Show solidarity
When you take ableism out of your speech, you’re showing solidarity for disabled people. As Rachel Cohen-Rottenborg says:
“If you do not want people of color to be called feeble-minded, or women to be called weak, or LGBT people to be called freaks, or fat people to be called diseased, or working-class people to be called stupid — all of which are disability slurs — then the solution isn’t to try to distance yourself from us and say, No! We are not disabled like you! The solution is to make common cause with us and say, There is nothing wrong with being disabled, and we are proud to stand with you.”
As Rachel Cohen-Rottenborg writes in 10 reasons to give up ableist language:
“I have seen people defend using mental disabilities as a metaphor by positing that all mentally disabled people are divorced from reality when, in fact, very few mental disabilities involve delusions. I have seen people use schizophrenic to describe a state of being divided into separate people, when schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiplicity at all. I have seen people refer to blindness as a total inability to see, when many blind people have some sight. I have seen people refer to deafness as being locked into an isolation chamber when, in fact, deaf people speak with their hands and listen with their eyes (if they are sighted) or with their hands (if they are not).”
Check out Lydia X. Z. Brown’s list of ableist slurs, and what you can say instead.
Don’t conflate disability with failure
Swap out clichés that associate disability with ignorance or failure (like “blind spot”, “his comments fell on deaf ears”, or “can I get a sanity check?”).
Say exactly what you mean instead (“I missed that”, “no one listened to him”, “is this clear?”).
Ask people
Between 75 and 90% of autistic people in the UK prefer identity-first language (“she’s autistic”) not “she has autism”), to take just one example.
That’s important to know, but it doesn’t tell us what everyone wants.
If you’re talking about a specific person, ask them.
Let people tell their own stories
Why write about people, if they can speak for themselves?
Make sure disabled people tell their own stories (if they want to).
Explain why
If you’re writing about all of the 1 billion disabled people around the world, you can’t ask them all.
Make a choice, and be willing to explain why you made it.
Centre the wants and needs of relevant people. Talk to people in relevant places, with the relevant disabilities, identities or onditions you’re talking about.
See disability in all its diversity
Every disabled person is different.
If you do an image search for “disability” it’s remarkable how narrow and repetitive the images are.
We tend to flatten disability – even though it’s as diverse as human beings ourselves are - into a few images: mainly wheelchair users, or people who use a white cane.
They can also cause us to collapse the person and their assistive tech into one.
Joanna Limburg writes: “The painted wheelchair symbol that marks out a disabled parking space at a supermarket car park, and the figure on that wheelchair. The stick person appears fused to the wheelchair, suggesting not just that a disabled person can be only a person who uses a wheelchair, but is someone who cannot be separated from it.”
There thousands of different disabilities and assistive devices in the world, so mix up the images you use and the stories you tell.
Show how normal disability is
“Disabled people should be featured in all forms of media, but not as wretches, waifs, trophies to someone abled’s kindness, nor as adult children. Disabled people should be featured as normal people,” writes Terra Vance. “Show disabled people doing everyday tasks without making the story about disability. Normalise disabled people, because having a disability is, well, pretty damn unremarkable. Lots of humans are disabled.”
Show disabled people, no matter what you’re writing about.
Check out stock image collections like:
Disabled and Here by Affect,
The Disability Collection by Yahoo,
SocietyPix: from Sozialhelden (Social Heroes),
Ask disabled people what they need
Not-yet-disabled people love doing things for disabled people, without checking if they’re actually helpful.
Look at all the “disability dongles” (coined by Liz Jackson) like braille decoder rings, sign-language-translating gloves and stair-climbing wheelchairs that go viral.
As Alex Haagaard and Rua Williams write, in a follow-up piece about disability dongles, these kinds of innovations are “promising in concept, but in actuality unattainable.”
Many are prototypes that the creators don’t even intend to make.
“While the press applauds the tech sector’s forward-thinking and sensitivity to the needs of underserved populations, the concerns of disabled people—voiced again and again and again—are disregarded” writes Laura Mauldin in Care Tactics.
“Disability is rarely meaningfully engaged, and efforts to build a more accessible world are abandoned in favor of high-tech Band-Aids designed to “fix” an individual person’s interactions with it. Meanwhile, disabled people develop and share hacks—which often don’t require high-tech anything [like] cutting a ring out of the opening of a sock and sliding it up to just below a knee to prevent skin irritation from a leg brace.
“In contrast to what gets churned out in glossy promotional materials for corporations and tech start-ups, disabled people find creative ways to make their worlds accessible every day.”
Keep it simple. You don’t need braille-decoding gloves to just ask disabled people what they need.
Check your assumptions
If you’re sighted, you might think that self-descriptions (“Hi I’m Ettie, I’m a ehite woman in my 30s, with pale pink hair and blue eyes”) are great.
But not all blind people or vision impaired people want to do self-descriptions. They may find them time-consuming and unhelpful. They may also mean that bias around race, gender, disability and other identities play an even bigger role than they might have.
“Having just attended the two largest US events organized by blind consumers, and like-wise being blind myself, it was refreshing not to have session speakers describing themselves” says Jennison Asuncion.
I’m not going to say you should never self-describe, but personally I don’t.
Consider your deeper motivation. Does your audience really need to know what you look like? Why?
And if they do, then are you doing everything else you possibly can to make your presentation accessible?
As Robbie Crow shares: “If you’re describing yourself at a speaking session, but you’re not then audio describing your presentation, don’t have BSL or subtitles on videos, or don’t use a microphone when offered, you’re just virtue signalling."
Ask disabled people what language they prefer
I love this advice from Caroline J. Mailloux:
“I default to person-first language in reference to others (“person with disability”) and I use identity-first language to describe myself (“I am disabled”).
“It’s common for individuals with similar experiences to have different preferences. And for preferences to evolve over time. I didn’t identify as disabled until my 30s, though experience [was] lifelong. This is true for many identities across race, gender expression and identity, caregiving etc – not just disability.”
To sum up:
· If it makes you feel more comfortable, choose a default for talking about others.
· As soon as possible, ask people which they prefer.
· Let people change.
Centre people, not rules
It’s language, not the law.
Alex Kapitan puts it beautifully in per (Alex’s pronouns are ze/per) article about person-centred language:
“Let’s practice person-centered language instead of person-first language, and remind each other that the point is to put the actual person first—to remember that all people are people and should be treated as the first and foremost experts on themselves.”
Now that we’ve got clear on what disability is, and how to talk accurately about it, how do we create content that’s genuinely accessible?
3. Get accessible
96% of the world's top one million websites don't offer full accessibility. Only 0.1% of tweets have alt text. Most of the internet doesn’t work for disabled people. It disables them.
In this section, I’ll give you some practical tips you can get started with, so your content is less disabling.
Involve disabled people
Hire, pay and centre disabled people.
Simply having marginalised people in the room isn’t enough to change oppressive systems.
As Alex Haagaard writes in the Against List:
“Advocating for ‘more disabled people in design’ without advocating structural changes to what design is, how it operates, and what problems it seeks to solve is just advocating for a select few people to gain more power within an unjust system, while allowing the marginalization of others by that system to become more entrenched.”
Use simple language
I’ve written before about why simple writing is better writing. It’s an accessibility win, and also – yes I know I’m repeating myself – everyone wins.
When talking about how simple language is, I recommend saying reading level instead of reading age if you’re talking about adults.
Avoid overlays
Steer clear of crude overlays that claim to make your website accessible. They rarely work.
Hire disabled people
Before you’re tempted to put a blindfold on to see how your website works for blind people, consider Catarina Rivera’s advice on disability simulations:
“Simulations do not actually help people know what my lived experience is like as a blind person with Usher Syndrome. Wearing a mask with pinholes in it won’t show nondisabled people […] my depth perception challenges, where going down a set of stairs that are all the same color requires full concentration and is stressful. Or my blind spots, where I can drop something on the floor and not see it until I circle all around the area to look from different angles and then the object “appears”. Simulations are very limited in what they can show. I would rather be asked about my own lived experience.
“After engaging in simulations, nondisabled people can often feel that life with a disability is harder than it is and can have more negative views about disability. Of course it’s going to be hard using a wheelchair for a day. You don’t know how to use a wheelchair. You’re not practicing and adapting over time. You’re not receiving supportive services. You’re just trying disability on. Nondisabled people already say many disparaging things about blindness and how it must be awful to live while being blind. Engaging in a simulation won’t help them revise that opinion, it will only strengthen it.”
Avoid flashing images
Some flashing images can trigger seizures.
If you spot one on social media, you can flag it with a hashtag like #Flashing. Don’t use a hashtag like #epilepsy, because that crowds out safe content and excludes epileptic people from using the hashtag on useful information.
That’s also true of flagging content that may be harmful for people with #EatingDisorders, or other triggers.
Always include alt text
Images without alt text (or image descriptions) disable people.
Alt text helps everyone, including sighted people, because it shows up if an image doesn’t load properly, and also boosts SEO.
Always include alt text, whether you’re posting an image for work or on your personal social media. Some tips:
Start paying attention to alt text, even if you don’t need it. Check out awe-inspiring examples like NASA’s Webb telescope images. And read Amy Kavanagh’s tips for writing great alt text.
Be concise. It’s usually not possible to skip through alt text. You have to listen to all of it, so make it count.
Convey the vibe, not just the facts. Learn from Haben Girma’s gorgeous alt text. It’s not just Aubrie in her wheelchair, but “Aubrie’s black throne of a power wheelchair.”
Give people equal access to information. If you don’t mention race or gender presentation in your alt text, many users will assume people are White (or other default dominant identities).
On Twitter, turn on alt text reminders so you can’t forget.
Write unique and descriptive hyperlinks
Hyperlinks should be unique and descriptive. They need to tell readers where they will go, and what they will get.
Do say: Read this guide to writing great link text.
Don’t say: Click here.
Use camel case for hashtags
Capitalise the first letter of each word in a hashtag.
If you don’t, screenreaders will read every single letter out individually. And they won’t know if you meant #BeanAlly, #BeAnally, or #BeAnAlly. Awkward.
Caption your videos
If you don’t caption your videos, you’re disabling people. Describe important sounds and music (not just words), and make sure the captions are synchronised with the video.
But don’t over-do it: over-written captions can disable people. As Meryl Evans explains:
“If I notice the captions, it's usually a sign that there's a problem. Imagine watching a baseball game and the captions show [thwack] every time someone hits the ball or [blip] when the ball lands in a glove. That would weigh down the viewing of the game. Every sound does not need captioning. Just like when we describe images in alt text, the key is to describe them in context to the content.
“Sometimes visuals show enough that no sound captions are needed. A good example is when the captions said [Eleven panting]. Visuals show Eleven running and breathless. No sound captions are needed.
“The key is to answer: What sound is important to the story that may not be obvious from visuals?
“Plain language is important in describing sounds. English has a rich vocabulary that the subtitlers can get creative in using many different plain language words to describe sounds. Words should be 8th grade reading level at the most.
“One of the subtitlers wanted to use [unearthly susurration]. My vocabulary is strong ... but I would've had to look up susurration. I had no idea what eldritch was. Now that I've looked it up, it's a great word but not for captions. If we have to look up words, that's not a good sign.
Read Meryl’s article on the Stranger Things captions, to find out what made them brilliant, plus more lessons on what not to do.
Format content properly
If you use bold text or different fonts to signify a heading, screenreaders won’t recognise it. It looks like a chunk of normal text.
This stops blind and partially sighted people from scanning the page (by generating a list of subheadings and skipping through them). It’s also harder for everyone to read, and worse for SEO.
Write for dyslexia
Use dyslexia friendly fonts (sans serif, minimum size 12). Watch out for double spaces, and avoid capitals and italics.
Check out the British Dyslexia Association’s Dyslexia Style Guide (opens as PDF).
Don’t assume how people use their bodies
People access the internet in different ways. For example, some people use a mouse, some use a trackpad, others use voice controls. Don’t assume that everybody clicks, types, speaks or interacts with content in the same way.
Do say: Select this option.
Don’t say: Click this button.
Provide options
Give people more than one way of doing something. Make sure people can use a mixture of voice, gesture, vision, or other senses to take part in meetings and social events.
Do say: Raise your hand, come off mute, or type in the chatbox if you have a question.
Don’t say: Raise your hand.
Try to present options as being equally valid. You could say “people who don’t read English”, for example, instead of “can’t”, if that feels judgemental.
If you’re describing something highly specific, which has no alternatives, you could add “if that’s available to you” or “if that’s an option for you.”
Do say: Wiggle your toes, if that’s available to you.
Think intersectionally
Nobody has just one identity. Disabled people are Black and queer and Asian and trans and cis and White and any other identity you can imagine.
We’ll never dismantle ableism if we fail to see how it intersects with other systems of oppression like sexism, classism and racism.
I mentioned Lizzo at the start. Not just because it’s a great lesson in how to apologise and take action when you mess up, but because the way that Lizzo got called out tells us something about all those other -isms.
A lot of White people felt comfortable calling Lizzo ableist, but they haven’t called out other artists for similar mistakes. Beyoncé has apologised for ableist lyrics, too.
Clearly, ableist lyrics are not okay. But what about Olivia Rodrigo saying “sociopath”, or Ava Max singing “sweet but a psycho”?
Why do we hold Black women to such high standards? It’s convenient, because it means White and less marginalised people are expected to do less work. But you know what I’m going to say: it’s on all of us to dismantle ableism.
Photo credit: Chona Kasinger via Disabled And Here.