Alexa Heinrich looks toward the future of accessibility.
How can we better include accessibility into brands?
Alexa Heinrich is an award-winning social media manager and the creator of the websites Accessible Social and Social Media Tea. She is a passionate advocate for creating accessible and inclusive content for social media and has given presentations on the subject to brands, organizations, and conferences around the world including Harvard University, the National ADA Symposium, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus. I talked with Alexa Heinrich about her passion for accessibility and career journey.
Goldie Chan: Hello Alexa. Could you tell us what your career path has been so far?
Alexa Heinrich: Like a lot of people who work in social media, my career journey has taken a lot of twists and turns. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago in 2013, I took a position as a junior graphic designer for City Colleges of Chicago. A year into that role, I moved from the Marketing Department to Academic Affairs to oversee the layout and management of the City Colleges academic catalog and class schedules. Two years later, I returned to the Marketing Department as a marketing rep.
It was during that time that I finally took over the City Colleges social media and learned about accessibility for digital content. I eventually left Chicago and have been working as the social media manager for St. Petersburg College in Central Florida since mid-2019. When I’m not working, I’m giving presentations on accessible best practices for social media and running my business, Social Media Tea.
Chan: And from your many projects, what has been your favorite project that you’ve built?
Heinrich: I’ve worked on a lot of amazing projects as a designer, social media professional, and accessibility advocate, but the project that has brought me the most joy is a personal one. I designed and launched the Accessible Social website earlier this year in March, and it continues to be a point of great pride for me just because I know it’s helping a lot of people. It’s also a living project because I’m constantly updating the site and tweaking different features to optimize the experience that people have when they visit Accessible Social.
Chan: There’s a lot that you work on. How would you describe your personal brand?
Heinrich: My personal sigil is an octopus, and I think that’s an apt way of describing my personal brand because I feel like I have multiple arms and I’m always juggling several things at once. I have a full-time job in higher education, I’m an accessibility advocate who takes on a lot of speaking engagements, and I run my own business. My personal brand is extremely online, carefully controlled chaos.
Chan: You speak often on accessibility on Twitter. How has your personal background around accessibility shaped your current projects?
Heinrich: When I first started learning about accessible best practices for social media, it was very frustrating. Most of the accessibility information online focuses on websites and digital communications that have been around much longer than social media. I hopped all over the internet, trying to piece together information from individual resources and articles that would help me as a social media professional. It was a gap that needed to be filled. I keep that experience at the forefront of all my accessibility work. I want learning about accessibility for social media to be accessible for everyone so no one has to feel frustrated like I was.
Chan: What accessibility-related projects are you working on right now?
Heinrich: My main focus right now is developing a fully recorded version of my Accessible Social presentation that can be easily accessed online. While I love presenting and taking on speaking engagements, it’s not always easy for me to balance my advocacy work with my full-time job and getting enough sleep every night. Having a readily available video presentation would offer flexibility for myself and the people who want to learn about accessible best practices for social media.
Chan: Why is accessibility important and how can others build it into their brands?
Heinrich: Accessibility is vital if brands and organizations want to ensure that everyone—including members of the disabled community—can access important information and communications. So much of the digital content out there today excludes individuals with hearing, vision, and cognitive disabilities, and that doesn’t have to be the reality.
Building accessibility into the content creation process isn’t hard. In addition to captioning videos, writing effective alt text for images, and developing clear copy, brands really need to hire individuals with disabilities and actually talk to the disabled community. Involving people who benefit the most from accessibility in the content creation process is the most effective way to be inclusive.
Chan: Which brands are doing accessibility well?
Heinrich: There are a lot of higher education institutions that have really been prioritizing accessible social media including Notre Dame, the University of Glasgow, MIT, and California State University Chico. I’ve also noticed the accounts for Gucci, Slickdeals, NASA, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and even many of the National Parks really stepping up their game when it comes to creating accessible content. Hopefully, we’ll see more brands and organizations doing the same in the very near future!
Chan: Do you have any last branding or career advice for this year?
Heinrich: Saying “no” is probably the most important skill I’ve developed in the past few years, and it has helped me find more balance in my career. I think a lot of young professionals feel like they have to do everything all at once; I certainly did. Saying no to a project when you just don’t have the time or energy for it is a healthy habit to have.
