Summary: Be intentional about including images of people with disabilities.

Who it helps: Everyone with a disability benefits from raising awareness and promoting belonging.

Additional benefits: Expands your brand and target audience

Many people like to see themselves in the images around them. Other people are "visual learners" - and find it easier to do things when they have an image or picture they can refer to.

You can take advantage of this to make your organization better for people with disabilities. 

How so? By using disability inclusive imagery.

Images like photos and drawings that show disability are good for several reasons:

• Many people with disabilities feel more included when they see images that depict disability. They feel represented, seen, or heard (metaphorically).

• Accurate images help many people better understand what accessibility looks like.

• Inclusive images can also spur people to think about accessibility.

Inclusive imagery portrays disability accurately and in respectful ways. There are many types of inclusive images. These include photos that show people with disabilities in many different contexts.

Where can you find disability inclusive images? There are many sources. Some of these are listed on our ta11y website's article on Disability Inclusive Imagery. There, you can find reliable sources for these images and ways to tell if an image is inclusive and accurate.

Action 

• Visit one of the image libraries cited in ta11y’s article on inclusive imagery. 

• Find one photo or image that you can use in your public or internal materials in the coming month.