The Washington Post announced that accessibility guidelines are available as part of its open-source design system. Launched last year, this system made fundamental code that powers The Post and its features publicly available for the first time. These guidelines can be used by anyone, including those outside of The Post. They include an accessibility checklist, testing strategies and considerations to make when creating online content.

The accessibility documentation was one of the first projects led by new Accessibility Engineer Holden Foreman. The new role was created to help The Post “align its efforts, maintain up-to-date standards and explore new opportunities in research and feature development for accessibility.”

As one example, shown above, states The Post states in the Audio and Video section, any time a video includes audio, there should also be captions provided. These should include words spoken AND any other meaningful sounds from the audio (such as a sigh or laugh in conversation, or the chopping of a knife in cooking) as well.

IMAGE: The Washington Post