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Many publications or communications policies simply state that the user's needs should be considered when deciding on whether to produce particular formats.
This is helpful but does not give communicators a definitive position. No policy can be set in stone but this guidance suggests what can reasonably be expected of government departments.
Disabled people may find processing lots of information tiring or difficult. When considering what to produce in alternative formats and how to produce it, this needs to be borne in mind.
You can usefully ask these questions:
Have you considered your target audience and are those target audiences likely to include people who will need alternative formats? If they are, who are they and what is the best way of getting the information to them?
For example, you may have produced a print recruitment advert for teachers. Translating this into Braille is unlikely to be the best method of reaching people with visual impairments.
An alternative would be producing an audio advert for commercial radio or for a specialist channel for people with visual impairments, such as Insight Radio. What about delivering this message by engaging with disability organisations directly or through credible partners?
Remember that while the eye can scan quickly, even through a long document, it can be more time-consuming and tiring to absorb the same amount of information listening to an audiotape or watching sign language.
As a communications professional, the most important thing for you is that the information or messages are received. It may be more effective to provide a summary of important points.
For example, a long brochure on cancer might be better summarised before being put into easyread or onto audiotape. The key points could be given, with the contact details for NHS Direct.
Have you considered the target audience and what you know about how they prefer to receive information? How likely is it that a product will sit on the shelf? Without an effective dissemination or marketing strategy, automatically producing large numbers of audiotapes, CD-ROMs or DVDs can be uneconomical.
A more cost-effective approach is to do some thinking about your target audience at the commissioning stage, to segment it and to consider who will be reached by a mix channels and formats and their costs.
Legal requirements apply to Welsh language alternatives. When considering what alternative formats to produce, you need to consider what is reasonable under both the Welsh Language Act and the Disability Discrimination Act.
Remember that if you are translating disability-related material into Welsh or community languages, it is very important to have them quality assured by someone who understands disability. Sometimes, for example, terms relating to mental health have been translated in ways that are offensive to some.
It is not good use of government money to produce every communication output in every suggested format and language as a matter of course. Experience suggests that producing bulk copies of alternative formats for every publication often results in warehouses full of stock that is expensive to print and store and goes out of date quickly.
However, web publication has particular advantages in relation to access, by enabling users to tailor files to their own requirements, such as font size, colour and contrast. There is more on digital communications elsewhere in this guidance.
For practical tips, visit the top tips section of this guidance.
For other information resources, go to the resources section of this guidance.
Page last reviewed: 11 August 2008