The UF College of Medicine is committed to creating digital experiences that are accessible and usable for everyone. In alignment with the U.S. Department of Justice’s updated Title II regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, all UF social media content must meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA by April 26, 2027.
If you are using social media, many platforms have built-in tools to maintain compliance with accessibility rules. However, there are a few steps required from each account administrator or manager to ensure content remains accessible and compliant. These guidelines apply to all UF College of Medicine social media accounts.
Please note: Accessibility is required for any content shared by a college account, including both original content and reposted content from another account. Do not repost something if you cannot confirm it meets accessibility requirements.
Contact med-comms@ufl.edu with any questions.
Accessibility Office Hours
The UF College of Medicine’s social media manager and digital accessibility specialist host a monthly office hour on Zoom for web and social media administrators in the college. Drop in to get live support for questions around web and social media accessibility. The next meeting will be held Wednesday, October 21 at 11 a.m.
Office hours Zoom meeting link
Meeting ID: 916 1941 7166
Dial in: +1 305 224 1968 US
Resources and Tools
Accessibility at UF website
UF social media accessibility best practices
This site covers best practices for day-to-day content creation and posting.
Tool
UFIT alt-text generator
Use this generator to create alt text and captions for complex diagrams or to generate examples of alt text for photographs and banners.
Trainings
Video
UF social media accessibility training
This video is a comprehensive training presentation on social media accessibility from UF’s Strategic Communications and Marketing team.
Video
Descriptive audio training
Follow along with Lindsay Gamble, social media manager for the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, and Danielle Ivanov, social media manager for the University of Florida College of Medicine, for a tutorial on how and when to add descriptive audio to your videos.
Accessibility on social media
Follow these social media-specific tips to ensure the content you’re posting and sharing is accessible to all audiences.
Video
All video content must have captioning for speech.
- Be sure to include both burned on and closed captions in each video you post.
- Some, but not all, social media platforms provide auto-generated closed captions. These are not enough on their own. They must be edited, and you should manually add your own captions manually whenever possible.
- To write burned on captions by hand, add a text box on top of your video and type in the words being said in the video audio. Make sure to reference the design best practices tip below to ensure proper color contrast and readability.
- To add closed captions, either allow this option in platform settings when uploading your video, or upload an SRT file.
- We also recommend adding a comment with a description of your video for an additional layer of accessibility.
Multimedia
Photos, graphics, flyers, logos and other multimedia resources must have alternative text.
- This means manually adding a visual description of the multimedia when you upload it to your post.
- Photo alt text should be concise, with plain language and natural punctuation. Avoid abbreviations. There’s no need to repeat information already provided in post text.
- Graphic and flyer alt text should be thorough and include any visible text on the image.
- We recommend limiting the text on graphics and flyers and instead including relevant information in your regular post caption. For example: event dates, times, locations and registration links can all be included accessibly in a post caption.
- When resharing content on a UF social media channel, you must check and ensure the content also has alternative text.
- If it does not have alt text, you cannot reshare it.
- To check for alt text, either click the alt text button (on X) or right click on the image and select “inspect”(all other platforms).
- Alt text examples:
Content copy and hashtags
#CamelCase your hashtags to ensure screen readers can accurately interpret them.
- Examples: #GoGators #GatorNation #UFMedResearch
Do not replace your words with emojis.
Readability
Follow design best practices for readability, including color contrast.
