Designing for Everyone: The Case for Accessible Visual Resumes

A resume is supposed to open doors. For job seekers with disabilities and the professionals supporting them, a visual resume (a resume that includes photos and engaging design along with work experience) can be the difference between a call back and silence. But if the person receiving the application relies on a screen reader to do their job, the most carefully designed resume may never be seen at all.

Every resume benefits from strong design. A clean layout with scannable text is a must. Visual resumes carry a bit more of a burden; in addition to demonstrating qualifications, they're meant to personalize the applicant through inviting colors, graphics, and pictures of the person and sometimes of their previous work environment.

"A lot of employers hesitate to hire someone with a disability simply because they've never done it before. What they don't know becomes a barrier. A visual resume lets them see the actual person... here's what they look like, here's what they can do. It isn't only a list of job duties, it's more like an introduction to the whole person,” says Theresa Kulow, ERI's Deputy Director.

Digital Design Tools Are Amazing, Until They Aren't

Design tools like Canva have democratized graphic design. Employment specialists love the flexibility and ease with which they can create visual resumes that showcase the talent and personality of job seekers with disabilities. But accessibility can still present challenges — especially for users without formal design or accessibility training.

Theresa, who also serves as head of ERI’s design team, ran into this problem firsthand.

"The problem is the moment you export to PDF and hit send — it’s not always fully accessible. All that great design, and a screen reader may still struggle to make sense of it."

Accessibility means a screen reader can correctly interpret the document structure, text, headings, and reading order.

Theresa points to some of the most common accessibility issues that can arise in visually focused design tools:

Screen readers may struggle with multi-column layouts if reading order is not properly defined
Text can sometimes export in ways that are difficult for assistive technology to interpret
Color contrast and font size issues can easily be overlooked without accessibility checks

These aren't minor inconveniences. Every change to that resume can require additional accessibility review and remediation. Add a job, update a phone number, and you may need to revisit the document structure again.

"Unless you know exactly how to build and export the file accessibly, you can end up redoing a lot of the work every time you make a change to the resume."

Microsoft Word as an Unlikely Design Hero

The solution turned out to be closer than expected. Theresa and the ERI design team took another look at Microsoft Word (not usually the first choice for visual design) and found that recent template updates have made it more capable than its reputation suggests. More importantly, Word has something Canva doesn't.

"Word has built-in accessibility checking right there in the document, as you work. And if you get it right in Word, when you export to PDF, you often don't have anything left to fix. It stays accessible so it lends itself really well to the whole process."

Word's accessibility tools have been part of the software for years, but Microsoft significantly upgraded them in 2024. The goal was simple: flag accessibility problems as they occur, the same way spell check flags a typo.

"When you define your headings, mark your table headers, set your reading order it means you're not doing anything extra. You're just building the document the right way. And when a screen reader comes along, it already knows exactly where to go."

A Message to the Broader Design World

Great design tools are only as good as what they produce. Until accessibility is built into the process rather than treated as an afterthought, even the most capable platforms will fall short for the organizations and individuals who need them most.

"Canva is a genuinely great product, and their nonprofit program is incredibly valuable. They already offer accessibility features, but making those tools easier to find and use would elevate everything they’ve built. You can be cutting off your whole customer base and not even know it."

Marketers, nonprofits, educators — anyone producing digital content may be unknowingly excluding a portion of their intended audience when they share inaccessible material.

What ERI Does Differently

At ERI, accessibility shapes everything we produce. When Theresa identified this problem, she didn't stop at noticing it. She found a better tool, built a workflow around it, and made it available to the team. We're sharing it here because we think it can be useful to others doing this work.

Creating an Accessible Visual Resume?

Whether you're a job seeker or an employment professional, here are the essentials for a visual resume that works for everyone:

Start Smart
- Start with one of Word's built-in accessible resume templates
- Look for a visual resume template that includes features like photo placeholders, columns, or graphic elements and is designed with accessibility in mind from the start
Design for Accessibility
- Use easy-to-read fonts at 11-12 points or larger
- Maintain strong contrast between text and background colors. If you're unsure whether colors are accessible, try WebAIM: Contrast Checker
- Add descriptive alt text to photos, logos, and graphics
Before You Share
- Run Word's built-in accessibility checker before exporting
- Export to PDF and verify the reading order is correct
- Test the PDF using Read Aloud to hear how it may sound to a screen reader user

Sometimes people put off addressing accessibility because they think it requires expensive or elaborate tools. Using the list above is a practical starting point — no specialized tools or training required.