I don’t want to work on creating accessible documents

“I don’t want to work on creating accessible documents”. You’ve heard me say this a lot over the years. The reason is that I hate the way the topic is handled, and I have never been tempted to start working on it. It’s a paradox, because except for documents, I love everything related to accessibility and inclusion and really love my job.

Before I continue, let me use an analogy I heard a long time ago. Imagine you are building the house of your dreams, the most beautiful home you can imagine. Once it’s all finished and decorated, you suddenly realise that you have to lay all the sewage pipes, water pipes and electricity cables. Because you realised it too late, the wires will end up on top of all the wallpaper and tiles. How will it look? Will it be beautiful? Will it be functional? That’s what happens when you ignore inclusion and accessibility until everything is ready. The result is neither beautiful nor useful.

I think we – all of us – treat documents the same way, and to be honest, sometimes even websites and apps. But it’s a much more common phenomenon when it comes to documents.

A sad experience

It was many years ago when I was first asked: “Can you please help us with the accessibility of our documents?” Of course!” I replied cheerfully, thinking it would be fun. But when I saw the document – a beautifully designed report of over 100 pages in PDF format with photos, illustrations and diagrams – alternative texts were missing, contrasts were too low and headings were not even formatted correctly. I asked if I could get the original file, but I couldn’t. I asked if I could get the help of an author to add alternative texts to the charts, but that wasn’t possible either. That’s when I realised I was pulling the wires around the report, and I said I no longer felt comfortable doing the job.

The bottom line, although the discussion did not go exactly like this, was: Why didn’t you ask the agency that created the report to make it accessible from the start? The reply: “We never do that, we ask the experts to fix it afterwards”. At first I thought it was a one-off, but then I got similar requests over and over again. In the end, I took a clear step back and said that I simply don’t work with accessibility in documents.

I would love to see that instead of fixing inaccessible documents as an afterthought, we start creating accessible documents from the beginning. Accessibility needs to be there when you create the design, when you put in the content and when you convert the document to a PDF file. I want accessibility and inclusion to be as much a part of the process as creating beautiful illustrations and glossy pages with well-styled text.

A better method

Do I still refuse to work with accessible documents? No, but I want to do it from a different perspective. I want to focus on teaching how to create accessible documents. I want to be involved in setting requirements for suppliers to ensure that accessibility is a natural part of the process. It will be both better and cheaper for all parties.

Stop adding accessibility as the last thing you do with documents, work it into the design process, into the content part and into the conversion, and demand that accessibility is already included when you order reports!