Most accessibility efforts fail for a boring reason: they depend on someone remembering to do them. You publish a great episode on a busy Thursday, the transcript slips, the artwork goes up without a description, and nobody notices until a listener writes in. A repeatable workflow fixes that. It turns good intentions into habits, and habits into a routine that takes less effort every time.

What follows is a per-episode process you can adapt to a solo show or a larger team. It doesn’t replace the detailed how-to articles on transcripts or players. It shows you where each task fits.

Before recording

The cheapest accessibility fixes happen before anyone presses record. Spend a few minutes on these:

• Brief your guests. Ask them to say who they are before they speak if there are several voices, and to avoid pointing at things (“look at this”) in an audio-only show.
• Gather names and spellings of people, places and terms. This helps with both transcript accuracy and show notes.
• Decide whether you’ll use any audio-only cues, such as music stings or sound effects that carry meaning. If so, plan how you’ll describe them in the transcript.
• Check your recording space. Clear audio helps everyone, and it also makes automated transcription far more accurate.

During recording

Your speaking habits matter more than any tool. Try to make these your defaults:

• Speak one at a time. Overlapping voices are hard to follow and nearly impossible to transcribe.
• Describe anything visual. If you share a screen or hold up an object, say what it is.
• Spell out unusual names or acronyms once, and say them clearly.
• Note timestamps for key moments as you go if you can. They make chapters and show notes faster later.

The earlier in the process you think about access, the less it costs.

After recording: editing and the transcript

Once you have the final audio, create the transcript before you do anything else with the episode. Doing it first means it’s ready when you publish, rather than a “we’ll add it later” promise that gets forgotten.

1. Generate a draft with whatever method you use, whether that’s automated software or a person typing.
2. Correct it against the audio. Fix names, jargon and punctuation, and make sure speakers are labeled.
3. Add meaningful non-speech sounds in brackets, like [laughter] or [phone rings], when they affect understanding.
4. Break it into short paragraphs so it’s readable on a phone.

Proofing takes longer than most people expect, so build that into your schedule. A rough rule of thumb is that careful correction takes noticeably longer than the length of the audio itself, though it varies with audio quality and your experience.

If you publish video or clips alongside the audio, add captions at this stage too, using the corrected transcript as your source so you only proof the words once.

Show notes and images

Show notes are your episode’s landing page, so structure them so they’re easy to scan with a screen reader. Use real headings, short paragraphs and proper lists. Write link text that makes sense out of context, so “the guest’s website” rather than “click here”. Keep a short summary near the top, then guest details, then resources and timestamps.

For any image, such as episode artwork or a graphic in the notes, write alternative text. Describe what the image shows or why it’s there, in a sentence or two. If the artwork just contains the show name and a logo, say so. If an image is purely decorative, leave its alt text empty so a screen reader skips it. Avoid putting essential information only inside an image.

Publishing and the player check

Before you announce anything, spend two minutes on the live page:

1. Is the transcript on the page, or clearly linked from it, near the player?
2. Can you tab to the play button, start the audio with the keyboard, and see where focus is?
3. Does the page title match the episode, and do the headings follow a logical order?
4. Do the page and player look right on a phone?
5. Does the audio file play from your feed as well as from the page?

If something’s broken, fix it now. Problems found on release day are quick to repair. The same problems found months later are buried under dozens of episodes.

Make it repeatable: templates, batching and roles

A checklist only works if it’s easy to use. Turn the steps above into a template you copy for each episode, with checkboxes and space for notes. Store it somewhere your whole team can reach.

Templates help in other places too. Create a show notes layout with headings already in place. Keep a transcript style guide with your decisions about speaker labels, bracketed sounds and how to format names. A one-page guide stops the same debate from happening every week.

Batching saves effort. If you record several episodes in a session, write alt text for the artwork in one sitting, or proof transcripts on the same afternoon each week. Switching between tasks costs time, so grouping similar ones helps.

If you have a team, assign roles clearly:

• Producer or editor: delivers clean audio and timestamps.
• Transcript owner: creates or commissions the transcript and proofs it.
• Web publisher: builds the episode page, adds alt text and runs the player check.
• Final reviewer: signs off on the checklist before the episode goes out.

On a solo show, you wear all four hats, so the checklist is your safety net.

How long will it take?

Expect the first few episodes to feel slow. Without inventing precise numbers, a good guide is that the transcript is the biggest block of time, while the page checks and alt text are small, often a matter of minutes once you have templates. Over a few weeks, the process speeds up as you learn your common corrections and reuse your own material. If the workload feels too heavy, shorten the checklist rather than abandoning it. A smaller routine you actually follow beats an ambitious one you skip.

Final thoughts

Accessible episodes come from consistent habits, not heroic one-off efforts. Brief your guests, speak clearly, create the transcript before publishing, structure your notes, describe your images and check the player on the live page. Put it all in a template, assign owners, and review the checklist every few months to see what could be simpler. Then run it again for the next episode.