Why is digital inclusion important?
Digital inclusion is legally required for cultural institutions. Its goal is to make digital tools as usable for people with disabilities as they are for people without. This way, no one is excluded.
Benefits of inclusion
- The perception visitors have of your organization improves.
- You reach more people, thereby generating more visitors.
- Google can better index your website, making you more discoverable.
So the question is not whether you should work on digital inclusion, but how you should do it.
Digital inclusion does not stand alone
Make inclusion part of everything you do, advises Alicia Hoost of Cultuurmarketing. The Oud Geleerd Jong Gedaan Foundation organizes online lectures for seniors, given by students. They have fully intertwined their core values with their digital strategy to be as inclusive as possible.
"Making things accessible is a continuous process. The world keeps changing, and people keep changing."
How do you do that? And more importantly: how do you turn the conversation about digital inclusion into action? Follow the 5 steps.
Where do you stand?
Start with a baseline measurement. How inclusive is your website? Can everyone use your app? And what about that tablet in the lobby—can people with visual impairments use it? For example, scan your website via wcag.nl or ismijnsitetoegankelijk.nl.
Where do you want to go?
What are your objectives? Who do you want to reach with them? Engage with your target audience and collect as much data as possible. For example, you can convert this information into personas, as Oud Geleerd Jong Gedaan does. They use these to address their audience in a way that suits them.
Create support
Individual departments cannot ensure digital inclusion on their own. Your web texts and hashtags may be inclusive, but if your programming is not, you’ll still miss your goal. Involve the entire organization in your vision, action plan, and change process. Ensure your staff and partners represent a cross-section of society.
Create an action plan
What do you want to achieve, and how will you do it? Document this. You can use the action plan from SER Diversity at Work for this purpose. There is one for large organizations and one for small organizations.
Evaluate
Monitor your progress. Conduct regular evaluation discussions, both within your organization and with your target audience. This will make digital inclusion part of your organizational identity.
"Our digital strategy was not developed in a single day; it’s a process of years."
A few quick wins:
- Ensure your images are inclusive: Show who is welcome. Display people with disabilities. Add alt text to every image: a description of what is depicted. This way, people using braille or speech software also know what you’re communicating.
- Use inclusive language: Write in clear language and use inclusive words. Words Matter, a guide for word choice in the cultural sector, and Values for a New Language (opens in new tab) can help you with this.
- Create descriptive links: Avoid ‘Click here’ or ‘read more.’ For people using braille or screen readers, it’s hard to navigate with such links. Where is ‘here’ if you can’t see? Always describe the purpose of the link in the link text itself, such as ‘Download our map’ or ‘View the playlist.’
- Avoid placeholders: Do you have a form on your site? Use text above the fields to indicate what should be filled in, rather than placeholders in the fields themselves. Since placeholders disappear when you type, it’s especially difficult for people with cognitive impairments to check if they’ve filled everything correctly. If something goes wrong, provide clear error messages with examples of what needs to be done.
Digital inclusion is a prerequisite for digital transformation. Every step you take carries a risk of excluding people; DEN challenges you to identify opportunities to be inclusive, especially through digital means. Curious about what else is involved in digital transformation? View the overview page.
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