While multimedia content provides a fun and expressive outlet for people, the experience isn’t the same for everyone. For a large portion of the population, some kinds of content are inaccessible. People of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities study with the OU – for instance, there are over 7,700 international students directly studying with us, and in 2019/20, 30,791 OU students declared having a disability. It is therefore crucial that we consider inclusive design practices on social media to benefit as many people as possible.
The ‘Inclusive & Accessible Social Media’ guide is intended to provide tips for creating accessible content on social media to ensure that we are integrating equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) for the long term. An integral part of ensuring inclusivity involves accurately representing the wide breadth of people - of all ages, races, genders and abilities - who work and study with the OU. The guide focuses on the main social media platforms we use, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram; however, the guidance provided can be applied to all forms of social media content’
