7 Simple Ways to Make Your Digital Products Accessible

When I first started creating courses and digital products way back in the day, I didn’t think about digital product accessibility. 

I was focused on making things look good, getting the content right, and figuring out the tech. 

But then I started paying attention. 

I noticed that some of my own materials were hard to read on a phone screen (especially as I got older and my eyes were getting bad). I realized that the cute script font I picked for a workbook header was genuinely difficult for some people to read. 

And when I learned about the curb-cut effect, everything shifted. The curb-cut effect is the idea that changes originally designed for people with disabilities end up benefiting everyone. 

Curb cuts were built for wheelchair users, but they also help parents with strollers, delivery drivers with carts, and travelers with rolling luggage. The same thing happens with accessible online courses, accessible ebooks, and inclusive video content. When you make your digital products easier to use for people who need accommodations, you make them better for every single person who buys them.

So if you have been thinking of digital product accessibility as a nice-to-have or something you will get to later, I want to gently challenge that. Inclusive design is not a bonus feature. It is how you build products that more people can use, enjoy, and recommend to others. And it is not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

Let’s talk about it.

What Does Digital Product Accessibility Mean?

Digital product accessibility means designing your courses, ebooks, workbooks, PDFs, and videos so that people with a wide range of abilities and needs can use them comfortably. 

That includes people who use screen readers, people with low vision or color blindness, people with dyslexia, people who are hard of hearing, and even, people who are just tired and reading on their phone at 10 p.m.

There’s plenty of “formal” guidelines for accessibility on these interwebs (e.g. WCAG if you’re curious). But for creators like you and me, digital product accessibility comes down to a handful of practical choices that make our work easier to read, watch, navigate, and understand. And most of those choices take very little extra time once you know what to look for.

How Does Digital Product Accessibility Grow Your Audience?

When your digital products are accessible, more people can use them. It sounds obvious, but I think a lot of us underestimate just how many potential customers we lose when our materials are hard to read, hard to navigate, or missing basic features like captions (not to mention refund requests, even if it IS “user error”).

About one in four adults in the U.S. has some type of disability. That is a significant portion of your potential audience. And beyond disability, think about people over 50 whose eyesight has changed (I am raising my hand here, with my astigmatism and MGD), people learning in a second language, people with situational limitations like watching a video in a noisy room without wearing their headphones, or people who are simply overwhelmed and need clear, concise content to stay engaged.

Digital inclusivity isn’t checking a box on a list of accessibility requirements. It you making a conscious choice not to accidentally shut people out from using your digital products. And the beautiful part is that the changes you make to help your most underserved users will improve the user experience for everyone. ❤️

Here are seven ways you can make your digital product more accessible.

1. Use High-Contrast Colors in Your Digital Products

Color contrast is one of the simplest accessibility improvements you can make, and it has a huge impact on readability. High contrast means there is enough difference between your text color and your background color so that people can read your content without straining to see.

You want to aim for a “contrast ratio” of at least 4.5:1 for normal text. You do not need to calculate this yourself. Free tools like the WebAIM Contrast Checker let you plug in your colors and see whether they pass. I use this anytime I am picking colors for like a workbook page or slide deck, and it takes about 30 seconds.

A few practical tips: 

• Dark text on a light background is almost always easier to read than light text on a dark background. 
• Avoid putting text over busy images or gradients. 
• And if you love pastels, make sure your text color is dark enough to stand out. A pale lavender background with medium-gray text might look lovely on your screen, but it can be unreadable for someone with low vision.

2. Write Descriptive Alt-Text for Images

Alt-text is a brief description added to an image on screen so that people using screen readers can understand what the image shows. If an image does not have alt-text, a screen reader will either skip it entirely or read the file name, which usually sounds something like “IMG underscore 4387 dot jpeg.” Not helpful.

Describe what is in the image and why it matters in context. If you have a screenshot showing where to click in Canva, your alt-text might say “Canva toolbar with the Text button highlighted.” If you have a photo in your course showing a completed spreadsheet page, your alt-text might say “Sample spreadsheet with three completed columns highlighted in red.” Keep it descriptive but concise, usually one to two sentences.

Decorative images (like abstract borders or design flourishes) do not need alt-text. You can mark them as “decorative” so screen readers skip right over them. The goal of doing this is to give people who might not be able to see the image the same information that sighted users get from looking at it.

You can’t use alt-text in videos. So here’s how you can still help. When you record a video, say out loud what you are showing on screen (add it in as part of your script).

• If you click a button, say “I am clicking the Share button in the top right corner.”
• If you highlight a section of text, say “This is the paragraph where we add the alt-text.”

People who cannot see the screen, or who are listening while doing something else, need your voice to fill in what they can’t see clearly. It also helps learners who process information better by hearing it than by watching it.

3. Structure Digital Products with Proper Headings

When you create a document, a course module, or an ebook, the headings you use are not just visual formatting. They create a navigational structure that screen readers and assistive technology rely on.

Using proper heading structure means applying H1, H2, and H3 tags in order rather than making text bold or bumping up the font size. I know you do this! 😆

Your H1 is your main title. 

H2s are your major sections. 

H3s are subsections within those. 

Screen reader users navigate documents by jumping between headings, so if your headings are out of order or missing, they lose the ability to skim and orient themselves  on the page or screen the way sighted readers do.

In tools like Google Docs or Word, this usually means selecting the heading level from a dropdown menu instead of manually changing the font. And it gives your product a logical structure that helps everyone follow along, not just screen reader users. And it makes it much easier for you to edit too!

4. Caption Your Videos for Digital Product Accessibility

If you create video content for YouTube, your courses or products, captions are non-negotiable for digital product accessibility. Captions help people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they also help people watching in a noisy environment, people whose first language is not English, and people who process written information more easily than spoken words.

Auto-generated captions are a good starting point (YouTube and many of the popular video editing sofware can do this for you), but they are not good enough on their own. I have seen auto-captions turn “Canva” into “canvas” and “write” into “right”  and completely mangle technical terms. Always review your captions and correct errors before publishing. 

If you want to go a step further, I highly recommend offering a downloadable transcript of your video content.

A transcript is a text-based version of everything said in the video, and it gives your customers another way to engage with the material. Some people prefer reading to watching, and a transcript makes your content available to them.

5. Choose Accessible Fonts for Your Digital Products

Font choice affects readability. Sans-serif fonts like Arial, Calibri, Verdana, and Open Sans are generally easier to read on screens, especially for people with dyslexia or visual processing differences.

It can be so tempting to use a beautiful handwritten or script font for your headers or workbook titles. But you gotta resist! 

If your font is hard to read at smaller sizes or on mobile devices, it is working against people who are trying to read your ebook or watch your course videos. 

A good rule of thumb: 

• Use a clean, legible sans-serif font for body text and save decorative fonts for very short, large text if you use them at all.

Font size matters too. For digital products, 16px (or 12pt) is a good minimum for body text. Anything smaller and you are asking people to squint, especially your readers over 40 whose eyes do not cooperate the way they used to (speaking from experience, have I mentioned yet I have bad eyes?).

I go into accessible fonts in more detail in my blog post: How to Choose Accessible Fonts

6. Make Links Descriptive in Your Digital Products

This is one of those small changes that takes almost no extra effort but makes a meaningful difference. Instead of writing “click here” or “learn more” as your link text, write something that describes where the link goes. Screen reader users often navigate by tabbing through links on a page. If every link says “click here,” they have no idea where any of them lead.

Instead of “Click here to download the checklist,” try using the link text “Download the Digital Creator’s Accessibility Checklist.” Instead of “Learn more,” try “Read the full guide to accessible font choices.” 

The link text itself should tell the reader what they will get when they click it. And this is good for people in genera, especially in a digital product like a PDF. They should haven’t to click the link to know what the link does.

7. Simplify Your Language for Better Accessibility

Plain language is one of the most powerful accessibility tools you have, and it costs nothing. Writing in simple, clear language means more people can understand your content, including people with cognitive disabilities, people reading in a second language, and people who are distracted, tired, or multitasking (which, let’s be honest, is most of us).

This does not mean dumbing down your content. It means being intentional about word choice and sentence structure. Use short sentences when you can. Break up long paragraphs. Choose common words over jargon. If you need to use a technical term, define it the first time you use it. Throw in a glossary if you have to use jargon or technical terms.

Depending on my audience, I try to write at roughly an eighth-grade reading level. This allows the language to be clear – and clear writing respects their time and energy. I actually prefer clear and concise over academic or “professional” styles. I will tell people all the time to explain it to me like a 3-year-old, please.

The Creator’s Digital Product Accessibility Checklist

Everything I mentioned above can feel like a lot to keep in your head, so here is a simple checklist you can run through before you launch your next digital product out into the world. I have organized it by product type so you can jump to the section that fits what you are creating.

For Ebooks and PDFs

For Online Courses and Slides

For Video Content

Don’t worry. You do not need to do all of this at once. Pick the product type you are working on right now, run through its section, and make improvements as you go. Every change you make opens your work up to more people, and that is the whole point.

FAQs About Digital Product Accessibility