Dear Orkney News,
The General Election is upon us. Up and down the country, candidates and their party activists are keenly engaging as many of the voting public as they can find.
This is an important part of our democratic process.
In recent years, online campaigning has grown in significance with candidates and parties spending a lot of money and putting a lot of energy into communicating their message to the online community.
There are around 183,000 people in Scotland with significant sight loss – and that figure is growing. This is around 3,000 per constituency. Blind and partly sighted voters would also expect candidates to communicate with them online.
By using alt text to describe any images on social media, political parties can include people with sight loss.
I would urge political parties and candidates to remember to use alt text for all their political campaigning on social media.
To find out more about accessible campaigning see our guide – How to campaign accessibly – Scotland (rnib.org.uk)
Yours sincerely, James Adams, Director , RNIB Scotland
