Go to next section
Quick Reference Guide to Accessible Campaign Information and Communication
Communication Strategies: Media
It is important to ensure that information and communications such as campaign literature, advertising and Internet communications are accessible. The following tips will enable you to better reach voters with disabilities with your campaign information as well as allowing those voters to fully participate in the campaign process.
Campaign Literature
Not all people can access the written word in conventional ways. People who are blind or have low vision may need a different format to access your campaign information. Ensure that your campaign literature is available, on request, in alternative formats, such as Braille or large print for people who cannot read traditional printed materials. Consider alternative format production even before requests are made.
It is equally important to make sure that your materials are designed and presented in clear language to meet the widest audience possible including people with low literacy skills, learning disabilities, cognitive disabilities and people whose first language is not English.
Make sure that all of your campaign staff is aware that your material is available in alternative formats and how to access it. Include a statement in all of your materials that will inform voters that your campaign materials are available in alternate formats so that the public is aware of the steps you are taking to include everyone. Be sure to include your TTY number. This will help to avoid the perception that materials and activities are unavailable when they actually are.
Campaign Advertising
Media advertising is a large part of any political campaign. You can reach the largest audience possible by ensuring your campaign advertising is accessible to people with disabilities.
Television Advertising
Your television campaign advertising should be closed-captioned to provide a narrative description of dialogue and sounds contained in the ad to make the information accessible to people who are deaf, deafened, and hard of hearing.
Printed words appearing on the screen should be read aloud using audio description that provides descriptions of what appears in the images. Just as closed captions provide display text corresponding to the audio in a video, audio description enables someone to hear what is being portrayed visually for the benefit of people with a vision loss.
In addition, television ads and video clips of public appearances that you capture to be included on your Web site should be treated in the same manner with closed-captioning and audio description.
Newspaper Advertising
While the very nature of print media is limiting to people who are restricted by print, there are steps you can take to ensure that your message reaches the largest possible audience.
As in your campaign literature, include a statement in all of your print advertising that will inform voters that your campaign materials are available in alternate formats so that the public is aware of the steps you are taking to include everyone. Be sure to include your TTY number.
Take advantage of the services offered through VoicePrint. VoicePrint, a division of The National Broadcast Reading Service, broadcasts readings of full-text articles from more than 600 Canadian newspapers and magazines. They also provide advertising opportunities through a fee-for-service program.
Radio Advertising
As in your campaign literature and newspaper advertising, include a statement in all of your radio advertising that will inform voters that your campaign materials are available in alternate formats.
Web Accessibility
Providing information about your campaign and campaign activities on the Internet is a fast and efficient way of informing voters. Yet not all people access the Internet in the same way. It is important that, as you begin to develop your communication strategies, you incorporate the principles of accessible design into the design of your Web site.
A site developed with accessibility in mind will not take any longer to build and doesn’t need to cost extra. There are many web developers who create accessible web designs as standard practice; and do not charge a premium for accessible design. If your Web site is inaccessible and needs to be modified then there will be an additional cost. Again, the cost will depend on the amount of work involved and the designer employed to do the work.
It is generally accepted that if your site conforms to the good practice outlined in the World Wide Web Consortiums (W3C) Web site Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), you have demonstrated your commitment to making your site accessible.
You should aim to ensure your Web site meets at least Priority 2 of the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international organization. One of its primary goals is to develop standards, protocols and guidelines to ensure that the benefits of web-based information are accessible to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.
Users with Vision Loss
It is a misconception that persons with vision loss do not use electronic media. In fact, for many people with a vision disability, e-mail and web-based technologies provide excellent communication opportunities. Users with a vision loss range from people who have little vision to no vision at all. These users can have problems understanding images or video clips that are not accompanied by a text description that describes what the image or video represents. Users with a vision loss may have difficulties navigating sites that are not built to be "viewed" through a non-visual browser such as a screen reader. A screen reader is a Web browser that reads Web sites out loud, making them accessible to users with a vision loss. Crisp, high-contrast colour schemes and larger font sizes with increased line spacing are easier to read for persons with low vision, including many seniors. For downloadable forms, its best to provide options including Word as well as PDF files.
Colour blind users may have trouble recognizing design elements, including text, whose colors are not sufficiently different from the design elements around them, including the background or colour of the text.
Users who are Deaf, Deafened, and Hard of Hearing
Users with a hearing loss cannot understand information that is communicated with sound. The solution is to provide an alternative that does not use sound, such as a text description, an image or a video that is captioned. Make campaign and party Web sites fully accessible to persons with hearing loss by including a TTY number and an e-mail address to request further information. Consider adding video content in American Sign Language for your key messages.
Users with Physical Disabilities
Some people with physical disabilities cannot access a Web site with the use of a mouse and may use alternative methods such as keyboard tabbing, voice recognition programs, head pointers or Morse code input in order to navigate through your site. These navigation methods need to be taken into account when designing your site.
Users with Cognitive Disabilities and Mental Illness
Web sites can be complex, and sites that use an overly complicated design, inconsistent navigation, confusing language and distracting, repetitive animation can be difficult for users with cognitive disabilities or mental illness.
E-Mail Accessibility
Candidates should be aware that e-mail could pose a barrier for some voters with disabilities. The following are tips that candidates should keep in mind to ensure that their e-mail messages are accessible and usable for all voters.
Plain text e-mail is the most accessible information format for e-mail. The user has more control over how the message is displayed and can view them at whatever font size they like.
Make messages short and to the point. Avoid graphics that are simply decorative in nature. If graphics are necessary, make sure that they include a text description for voters who are blind or have low vision, or those who can only read text-only e-mails.