For almost a year, I sat on this idea of sharing what I know about digital accessibility because I didn’t know it all. Then it occurred to me—I shouldn’t feel like I know it all because accessibility is a continual journey of discovery. That realization (and the nudge of a friend) inspired me to start Luminary Content.
Learning something new can be overwhelming, especially without guidance on where to begin. Think about how you’ve learned other complex skills—maybe through a college course or professional training. There’s a reason those programs are designed so you learn one topic at a time, building upon what was learned previously.
When it comes to creating accessible communications, there seems to be a feeling that everything needs to be learned at once. I think this comes from success being gauged as creating something once and then not having to go back and make changes to it again. This has resulted in communicators I know wanting to make sure web pages and all other materials are 100% accessible on the first pass. While this is a great goal to have, I think this approach makes it harder for someone to feel like they’re making progress when learning digital accessibility.
Instead of trying to learn everything at once, Luminary Content encourages communicators to learn a few basics to get started. The foundational concepts I cover in step 1 on the Create Accessible Content page provide a fantastic starting point. As a bonus, most digital accessibility issues stem from these basics—like missing alt text on images, poor color contrast, and headings out of order—so if you learn and start applying them, you’re already making a real difference in providing an equitable user experience to people with disabilities.
Once you’re confident in the basics of step 1, you can learn and add on the concepts in step 2 to your accessibility skills and knowledge. Once you learn those, you can move on to step 3, and so on.
With a mindset of continual improvement instead of perfection, I fully encourage communicators to embrace the idea of touching content multiple times as they learn new accessibility concepts. It’s the beauty of creating communications in the digital space—it’s easy to access digital files and there’s no lost cost of needing to reprint if you make updates.
So if you’ve been putting off learning about digital accessibility because it feels too overwhelming or because you’re worried you won’t get it perfect right away, I hope this gives you permission to just start. Learn one thing, apply it, and then come back to learn the next. That’s exactly the journey I’m on too, and I’d love to have you join me. Because at the end of the day, making our digital content even a little more accessible is better than waiting until we feel ready to make it perfectly accessible. Progress over perfection, always.
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