Setting a New Standard for Accessibility with FBC
Every client Majic partners with expands our perspective in some way. We don't just build brands; we immerse ourselves in the worlds of the organizations we serve, learning alongside them so we can tell their stories with greater authenticity.
This year, we've had the privilege of working with a team whose mission is to transform lives while challenging society to reimagine what inclusivity truly means. Our partnership with them has also challenged us to rethink how we approach our work in branding and marketing.
Read to the end of this blog to get a quick fact sheet on how to make your materials more accessible for people using visual accommodations!
Meet FBC
FBC, also known as the Foundation for Blind Children, is setting the national standard for supporting people and families navigating vision loss. Through education, therapies, family support, employment resources, and community programming, FBC helps people with visual impairment thrive at every stage of life.
Their tagline, "See It Our Way," invites the broader community to see disability not as something to overcome, but as a different way of experiencing the world. This tagline is a powerful reminder that accessibility isn't about accommodation alone. It’s about creating a world designed with everyone in mind.
Earlier this year, Majic partnered with FBC to develop a comprehensive brand strategy designed to strengthen the organization's storytelling, reach new families, and inspire greater philanthropic support. Along the way, our team received an education of our own.
Accessibility: Marketing's Biggest Gap
As marketers, we spend our days creating experiences through words, images, motion, color, layout, and interaction. Every platform, from websites and emails to social media and PDFs, has its own language and technical constraints.
Yet far too often, we build those experiences for the "average" user rather than for everyone.
The accessibility of marketing materials—in everything from web to printed materials—is often treated as a mere checklist item at the end of a project instead of what it should be: a design principle that shapes every creative decision from the very beginning.
The outcome? So many beautifully designed marketing experiences become frustrating, confusing, or even downright unusable for people who experience the world differently.
We are grateful to FBC for taking the time to educate our team about how we as creators can envision projects with accessibility at the forefront. To honor the gift of this knowledge, we want to share this information with our broader Majic community so you, too, can create for all to enjoy.
Designing Beyond the Screen
People with visual disabilities have enjoyed tremendous improvement in technology access in recent decades. Modern screen readers can interpret websites, documents, applications, and even many images with the assistance of AI.
But that technology can only work with the information we provide.
As we learned from FBC’s assistive tech department, a thoughtfully structured webpage allows a screen reader to communicate information clearly and efficiently. A poorly structured one forces users to navigate through unnecessary repetition, missing context, or disorganized content. If using a screen reader, a lack of consideration for accessibility can result in someone hearing a jumbled mix of link characters or not being able to access content at all.
The bottom line here is that the difference isn't the technology. It's the way we build.
Not Everyone Experiences Information the Same Way
One of the biggest lessons we've learned from FBC is that people don't simply consume information in different formats. They actually perceive it differently.
When a sighted visitor lands on a website, they immediately absorb dozens of visual signals: photography, typography, color, page hierarchy, navigation, calls to action, and layout. A person using a screen reader experiences that same page sequentially, navigating through headings, landmarks, buttons, links, and content in an order that helps them understand and explore the page.
Neither experience is better or worse. They're simply different.
Designing for accessibility means intentionally creating experiences that are meaningful regardless of how someone encounters them.
Accessibility Isn't About Describing Everything
A surprising thing we gleaned in our study of accessibility is that content that’s usable for different experiences isn’t necessarily more descriptive and that every single decorative flourish needs a detailed explanation.
For instance, alt text should communicate information that is meaningful to understanding the content, but not every visual detail. Decorative graphics often don't need descriptions at all. The goal is clarity of information over abject completeness.
When accessibility is done well, users spend less time filtering through unnecessary information and more time engaging with the content that actually matters.
Building More Accessible Brand Experiences
Accessibility touches every communication channel, whether via web, on social, or in email/text marketing. While every platform has its own technical requirements, we found that a few principles consistently improve the experience of all users, regardless of ability.
Websites
Well-organized content creates better experiences for every person you interface with. Some best practices include:
Use a logical heading structure (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to establish clear hierarchy.
Label forms and interactive elements clearly so assistive technology can identify their purpose and current state.
Write concise, meaningful alt text for informative images while marking purely decorative graphics appropriately.
Maintain strong color contrast for users with low vision.
Ensure buttons and links clearly communicate where they'll take users.
PDFs
Accessible PDFs should be designed with the same intentional structure as websites. This includes:
Proper heading hierarchy
Tagged document structure
Meaningful reading order
Embedded text instead of flattened images
Accessible form fields when interactive documents are required
Social Media
Accessibility on social platforms is often overlooked, despite built-in features that make a significant difference. Whenever possible:
Use platform-supported alt text for images.
Include image descriptions when appropriate.
Avoid placing essential information exclusively inside graphics.
Use captions for video content.
Email Marketing
As much as we love beautifully designed image-based emails, relying entirely on graphics creates barriers for many readers. More accessible emails combine visual branding with live, selectable text. That means:
Using built-in text for headlines, body copy, and calls to action.
Reserving images for visual storytelling rather than essential information.
Applying thoughtful alt text to images that provide essential context.
Building layouts that remain readable when images don't load or assistive technologies are in use.
Employing these practices creates an experience that serves both sighted and non-sighted audiences without sacrificing brand quality.
Creativity's Next Frontier
In branding, it's easy to become obsessed with pushing creative boundaries through visuals, animation, and immersive experiences. But perhaps the next frontier isn't creating experiences that look different; perhaps it's creating experiences that can be experienced by everyone.
Working alongside FBC reminded us that accessibility isn't a constraint on creativity. It's an invitation to expand it. Because strong brands go beyond capturing attention, they create a sense of belonging for any person who comes across content.
And as marketers, designers, strategists, and storytellers, that's a standard worth building toward.
