Podcasting Accessibility and Inclusivity – PCI 368

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Explore ways to make your podcast more accessible to all listeners, including those with disabilities.

Podcasting is a powerful medium but it’s essential to ensure that everyone can enjoy and benefit from your content. By focusing on accessibility and inclusivity, we not only open the doors to a wider audience but also enrich the podcasting ecosystem with a more vibrant, empathetic, and representative tapestry of stories and ideas.

Today we’ll cover the aspects of accessibility from content creation to distribution and publication.

Understanding Accessibility

• Creating podcasts for a larger audience
• Common disabilities that may affect podcast listeners: hearing impairments, visual impairments, cognitive impairments

Creating Accessible Content

• Use clear and concise language
• Avoid jargon or complex terminology
• Clear and consistent audio quality

Transcripts and Captions

• Transcripts benefit those with hearing impairments but also all listeners
• Tools and services for generating accurate and high quality transcripts
• Our partner Rev provides Blubrry customers transcripts
• Value of adding captions to video podcast content for deaf and hard of hearing

Descriptive Audio and Alt Text

• “the verbal depiction of key visual elements in media and live productions.”
• Considered essential to comprehension of the content
• Can be added to your video podcast
• Alt Text: An accurate description of the image – very detailed and explanatory
• Both are helpful for accessibility and SEO

Podcast Player Accessibility

• The Blubrry player allows for accessibility as well as many social media apps
• Listeners with disabilities can benefit from these features.
• Podcasters should be aware of accessibility in player design when creating their websites or apps.

Listener Feedback and Engagement

• Actively engage with your audience to learn about their specific accessibility needs.
• Highlight success stories of podcasters who improved their content based on listener feedback.