Your annual report should work for people who can’t see it
An accessible PDF is not a special edition. It is the same report, made properly, so screen readers, phones and search engines can all read it. Here is what that involves.
Photo: Mizuno K
Most annual reports in Kenya are published as PDFs exported straight from a design program. They look fine on a laptop. To someone using a screen reader, many of them are a jumble: headings that aren’t headings, text read in the wrong order, charts described as “image”, and sometimes pages that are pictures of text with nothing to read at all.
Kenya has an estimated 0.9 million people with a disability, according to the 2019 census, and many more with low vision who zoom, use larger text or listen to documents. Your board members, donors and members are among them. Making your report accessible isn’t a favour to a small group. It’s finishing the job.
What “accessible PDF” means in practice
An accessible PDF has a hidden structure, called tags, that tells assistive technology what each part of the page is. With good tags:
- Headings are real headings, so a reader can jump from section to section, just as a sighted reader scans the page.
- The reading order is right: the main text, then the sidebar, then the caption, not all three mixed together line by line.
- Images and charts have descriptions, and the description says what the chart shows (“Deposits grew every year, from KES 1.2 billion to KES 2.1 billion”) rather than what it is (“bar chart”).
- Tables are real tables, with header cells, so a screen reader can say “2025, total loans: 1.8 billion” instead of reading a list of unconnected numbers.
- The document has a title and a language set, so it’s announced correctly and pronounced in the right accent.
- Text is text, not images of text, so it can be enlarged, searched and copied.
Why it matters beyond compliance
An accessible report is a better report for everyone. The same structure that helps a screen reader lets a phone reflow the text, lets search engines index it, and lets a busy reader jump straight to the section they need. Many donors and public bodies now ask for accessible formats in their reporting requirements, so it’s also worth checking yours.
How to get there without doubling the cost
- Plan the structure before the design. If the content has clear headings and a logical order, tagging it is straightforward. If it doesn’t, no amount of design fixes that.
- Write chart titles that state the point. “Loan processing time fell to 4 days” is a better title than “Loan processing time, 2021 to 2025”, and it doubles as the start of the image description.
- Use the design software’s structure tools (paragraph styles mapped to headings, anchored images, real tables) instead of drawing things by hand. This is where most of the accessibility is won or lost, and it’s invisible to the client unless they ask.
- Check it. Free tools such as the PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC) will catch most technical problems. Then open it with a screen reader, NVDA on Windows is free, and listen to the first few pages.
- Publish a web summary too. A one-page summary on your website, in plain HTML, is the most accessible format of all, and it’s the page most people will actually read.
What to ask your designer
“Will the digital PDF be tagged for accessibility, and how will you check it?” If the answer is vague, it probably won’t be. Every report Nyoni designs includes an accessible digital PDF alongside the print file, checked before delivery. More about reports and presentations.
Sources
Disability prevalence: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, Volume IV. Accessibility checker: PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC), from the Access for All foundation. Screen reader: NVDA, from NV Access.
