Accessibility
Statement

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

We are committed to meeting Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 or 2.1 for all our web projects, unless there are exceptions agreed for specific reasons. Our user experience (UX), development and search engine optimization (SEO) principles support this. Their implementation helps ensure that better quality digital properties are being created, and not only for users who may have a disability. We set these requirements out in our plans and testing.

We test against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG), published by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

• Help using your computer or mobile device
• Apple accessibility
• Google accessibility
• Microsoft accessibility

Page layout

Our Website Hub uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to build page layouts which means that pages are well structured and support most assistive technologies.

Images

We aim to ensure all our images have alternative text which describes what is displayed on the screen.

Text

We aim to write our text as clearly as possible using straight forward language and fonts that are clear and of high contrast. You can resize text using your browser settings.

We use headings and sub-headings to break up text and to aid screen readers.

We also provide two accessibility tools to assist you.

Accessibility Adjustments with accessiBe

With accessiBe you can personalise accessibility adjustments that include profiles:

• Seizure safe
• Vision impaired
• ADHD friendly
• Cognitive disability
• Keyboard navigation
• Blind users

You can also adjust content including:

• Scaling
• Readable font, font size, line height, spacing, alignment and text magnifier
• Highlight titles and links
• Colours, contrast and saturation
• Orientation adjustments

accessiBe can be opened by clicking the floating button at the bottom-left of your screen.

Listening with ReadSpeaker webReader

With ReadSpeaker webReader, the content on our website can be read aloud to you. Just one click, and the text on a web page is simultaneously read aloud and highlighted so you can easily follow along, regardless of device or where you may be. This makes the content more accessible and visiting the website is a more enriching experience. As a user, you don't have to download anything.

How does it work?

Activate webReader by clicking the Listen button on the upper-middle of the website.

webReader also allows you to:

• Select text and click the listen button in the pop-up menu that appears to have the selected text read.
• Hover over a paragraph of text to have it read out automatically.
• View a clutter-free version of the web page with text in your preferred font, size and color as it is read aloud and highlighted.
• Download an audio version of your content for offline listening.
• Translate a selected text to a number of languages and have the text read in the target language.
• Personalize reading speed, highlighting colors, and more.
• Select a word and find its definition in the dictionary.

Clear instructions on how to use each feature are provided in the Help Tool, which is found in the toolbar. Try reading through the Help Tool to pick up ideas on how to make optimal use of webReader's features!

Keyboard Navigation

webReader can be activated, i.e. focus can be set on the Listen button, with the access key “K”. The access key “L” will set focus on the player and also start the reading. Many of the webReader tools and features also have a dedicated access key. Access keys are activated with modifier keys, which differ depending on the browser and the operating system used (see list of modifier keys for different environments here)

Inside the player and toolbar, i.e. when the user has set focus on the player, tab/shift+tab can be used to navigate and the enter key to activate a certain button or option.

• Put focus on Listen button: Modifier + K
• Activate webReader player: Modifier + L
• Open/close toolbar: Modifier + 1
• Open Help feature: Modifier + I
• Other access keys: see Help feature

Cookies

webReader is best used with cookies enabled, as it will allow the user’s personal settings to be saved between sessions.

Platforms and web browsers

webReader is a device-independent and cross-platform solution. It should work with:

• All commonly used online devices: pc, laptop, Chromebook, tablet, smartphone, and more.
• All major operating systems: Windows, Chrome, Android, iOS, macOS, and more.
• All major browsers: for laptops and PCs: IE7+, Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari; for mobile devices: Safari and Chrome on iOS devices, Chrome on Android devices, Chrome and Edge on Windows Phone

To learn more about ReadSpeaker, visit www.readspeaker.com

Links

All links written in sentences are clearly displayed in a different colour.

Navigation

We use consistent navigational aids throughout the Website, You can return to the homepage at any time by clicking our logo n the top left-hand corner.

We’ve divided our content into sections but you can also use the:

• Site search function (top-right on toolbar)
• Chatbot Gutsy (bottom-right button)
• Skip links (on many pages)
• Shortcuts (on the header and footer).

My Page

We've created My Page to enable you to save pages that you want to come back to at a later date. Most pages on the website have a Save to My Page button. Once clicked, you can then find your pages in the My Page section which you'll find on the top toolbar. 

Coming soon: You'll soon have the option to create your own free account which means you can save pages and then access them on different devices. 

Downloads

All our information publications are available to download as Adobe PDF files.

To open our PDF files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.