Why to Avoid Adding Posters or Banners to Your Website

We see it all the time - requests to add image files to the website containing complex text.

It could be a poster for an event or a banner advertising a service. We often see these being sent from NHS bodies or third parties, such as your online triage service. Sometimes they are sent as part of a package of marketing resources which includes variations for your website, your surgery noticeboard, and your social media platforms.

While a person with a visual impairment or a non-English speaker won't be able to get the information from the poster on your wall without assistance, your website gives you a unique opportunity to make this information accessible to as many of your patients as possible.

If we are asked to add posters or banners to a website, we will always recommend that we recreate the information by typing it directly into a webpage instead. Here's why:

1. Screen Readers

Those with visual impairments will often use a screen reader to help them navigate your website and to help them read through the information. The text in an image file is not compatible with these technologies, so will be missed.

Adding "alternative text" to an image can help - this is essentially a short description of the image so a blind person knows the context. It is also useful if the image won't load due to a poor internet connection.

While adding "alternative text" to images can sometimes be a solution, it's not realistic if it needs to include all of the information from an entire A4 poster. It also doesn't solve some of the other issues listed below.

2. Colours and Fonts

When checking any updates to your website for accessibility issues, we use a combination of automated and manual techniques. We can use tools to check if the colour contrasts between text and background are accessible and readable. We have also carefully chosen fonts for our websites to be dyslexia-friendly. We can't confirm any of this if the text is within an image file.

3. Mobile Phones

According to NHS England's guidance on making your website highly usable and accessible, the majority of your website traffic is going to be from mobile phones:

"Analytics from nhs.uk for the first six months of 2022 show 81% of sessions were via mobile devices, with just 16% from desktop and 3% from tablet.  Research from Ofcom shows that people with low digital confidence are more likely to only use a mobile to go online."

When you add a banner or poster, it may look lovely on a full desktop computer screen, but the image will need to resize to fit on a mobile or tablet screen. More often than not, by the time the image has shrunk down, the text on the image is so small even someone with 20:20 vision couldn't read it!

4. Translators

Similar to screen readers, many of your users may depend on a translated version of your webpage. While tools like Google Translate aren't perfect, they will help patients understand vital information. A translator cannot adapt text within an image file.

To sum up, while it may take a bit more time to get right, it's totally worth it to make sure you haven't introduced digital inequalities to your website. It allows as many users as possible to access the important information on your website.