Content Author Responsibilities in Accessibility Roles and Responsibilities Mapping (ARRM)

Role summary

Content Creation is often used in marketing, but can also be a task assigned to a role within a product team. Content creation involves defining a content strategy, the writing or creation of the content or media for a product. The person who authors the content is responsible for making sure that content is accessible to people with disabilities.

Key deliverable examples:

Body copy, managed content, scripts, taxonomies, written guidelines, media files, including PDF, audio, and video

Tasks include:

Content authoring, Media and documentation creation, and Content strategies definition

Example job titles for this role:

Content Strategist, Content Creator, Content Designer, Content Author, Digital Copywriter, UX Writer, Content Producer, Technical Writer, Information Developer, and Content Developer

Tasks to get started

Below is a list of tasks for Content Authors to get started making your work more accessible to disabled people. If these tasks aren’t met, your content can create barriers to users with disabilities.

Important notes:

• This resource does not set requirements to meet WCAG.
• This is not a definitive list of accessibility tasks.
• Some tasks support accessibility beyond what WCAG requires.

You can also get the full list of Tasks Involved in Accessibility as a web page with other roles, or download the CSV file.

Case study: How to use the tasks

A good way to get familiar with the tasks is to do a short case study. Think about how you might tackle the task in your role.

Then, think of how meeting this task impacts an end user.

Task:

IMG-002: Informative images are described with a clear and meaningful text equivalent (alt attribute or other equivalent means).

Primary Role: Content Author

“As the primary owner of this task, I will ensure that any images that contain information or represent an action or a symbol for the user, and are not just decorative - have a descriptive and meaningful text alternative that will be announced by screen reader software.”

Secondary Role: None

There is no secondary owner of this task.

Contributor Role: None

There is no additional contributor for this task.

End user persona: Lakshmi, a senior accountant who is blind

Lakshmi is blind and uses a screen reader (speech-to-text software) and keyboard to navigate web pages. She uses websites daily for research and financial transactions. This design task ensures she isn’t confused by an unexpected behaviour, i.e., when her keyboard focus lands on a button for the first time and content is announced automatically or the button automatically opens another page.

The intent of the task is to ensure that functionality is predictable as visitors navigate their way through a document.

This task helps people with visual disabilities, cognitive limitations, and motor impairments by reducing the chance that a change of context will occur unexpectedly.

Read Lakshmi’s full story and learn about other design tasks that benefit users like her.

Additional resources

• Use the Alt Text Decision Tree to help decide if an image needs a description.
• Use the Tips for Writing to get started.
• Review the Images Tutorial for guidance on different types of images.