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Accessibility statement for the Ascend website (www.ascend.medsci.ox.ac.uk)

NDPH’S COMMITMENT TO ACCESSIBILITY

NDPH is committed to making our websites and digital services as accessible as possible. Our aim is to combine excellent user experiences with high levels of accessibility and inclusivity, so everyone can use our digital services, whatever their abilities or disabilities. 

ADAPT YOUR EXPERIENCE TO YOUR NEEDS

This site has been created to be usable ‘as is’, which means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

We have also tried to make website text as simple as possible to understand.

Some people are likely to get the most accessible experience by customising their computer to suit their individual needs, for example, to get the site dictated to them, to change the colour-scheme, or increase the size of the text.

If that sounds like it would be useful to you, we recommend you visit AbilityNet for advice on making your devices easier to use if you have a disability.

In addition, major operating systems produce the following guidance:

IMPROVING ACCESSIBILITY ON OUR SITE

Through user-testing of our site we are aware that there are accessibility improvements users may benefit from. These are:

  • Reviewing the alt-text (description) of the images on the site and correcting any discrepancies.
  • Improving the consistency of our site navigation, and the visibility of highlighting which element on the page has been selected.
  • Improving the consistency of labelling in our navigation, and the information on some of our links to make them easier for screen reader users to understand.

Some of the features of the site use WAI-ARIA (a technical specification by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on how to increase the accessibility of web pages) to provide an accessible experience. All modern computers, tablets and phones include browsers that support WAI-ARIA. However, older Android 4.1 devices do not. If your phone or tablet uses Android 4.1, and you have any difficulties using the site, we recommend you update the operating system on your device to a more recent one.

FEEDBACK AND CONTACT INFORMATION

If you need information on this website in a different format, please email the NDPH Communications Team. We will consider your request and get back to you within 14 days.

Please let us know if you have difficulties using this site.

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our site, so if you find anything on the site difficult to use please let us know. To help us understand your difficulty quickly, please provide the information advised in ‘Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites’ in your request.

All constructive feedback regarding the accessibility or usability of our site is welcome and will be carefully considered. 

ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURE

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you have a complaint and are not happy with how we respond to it, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

TECHNICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS WEBSITE’S ACCESSIBILITY

NDPH is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. 

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the issues and exemptions listed below. 

NON-ACCESSIBLE CONTENT 

The content listed below is non-accessible for the reasons described. 

Images:

  • Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
  • Some images have very long text alternative, which will cause an issue with people using a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). 

Navigation and accessing information:

  • Not all pages have the appropriate level 1 headings included to indicate the page’s topic or purpose, which can result in people with cognitive disabilities being unable to quickly orientate themselves within the site and identify the purpose of the page without interpreting its entire contents. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2.
  • Not all content is contained within navigable blocks within the page which can result in people with cognitive disabilities being unable to navigate from section to section. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1.
  • Not all forms and input fields have labels indicating the purpose of the field they relate to, which can result in people with reading difficulties having problems understanding the purpose of the content and users of screen readers being unable to easily navigate the form. 

Links:

  • Some links do not use text that is meaningful, which can result in users of screen readers not being able to understand the link without reading the surrounding text and users of speech recognition software being less able to target links accurately using voice commands. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4.

Keyboard operability: 

  • Carousels do not have obvious controls for users to stop the auto-rotate, which can cause people with cognitive disability that affects focus and concentration to be distracted, making the site less accessible. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.2.

Issues with contrast, use of colour and visual characteristics:

  • Some elements have low contrast levels which can result in text being difficult to read, especially for people with low vision, poor eyesight or colour blindness. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.3.
  • Some pages use colour as the sole way to convey important information, which means that users who cannot see colour are unable to perceive the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1.

Issues with documents, including Word files, PowerPoints, PDFs: 

  • Many of the documents (Word and PDF) on this site do not meet accessibility standards, which could result in them not being fully accessible to users of screen readers.

We plan to fix these issues by September 2021.

CONTENT THAT IS NOT WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE ACCESSIBILITY REGULATIONS

THIRD-PARTY CONTENT

Our site includes third party content and functionality. This may direct you to a related service, link to another site or supporting documentation. We are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party content or of other sites we link to.

This includes:

  • YouTube videos
  • Google maps.

We will provide an accessible alternative to any third-party content that isn’t compliant.

DOCUMENTS (WORD & PDF)

This site has a number of Word and PDF documents which were published before September 2018. These aren’t essential to the service we provide and won’t be replaced. If you experience any difficulties accessing these documents, please email NDPH Communications.

VIDEO AND AUDIO CONTENT

This site has pre-recorded audio and video content that was published before 23 September 2020, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations.

ARCHIVED CONTENT

This site contains archived content, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations. The archived content is external news stories published prior to 23 September 2018 which have not been updated since then.

WHAT WE’RE DOING TO IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY

We want to provide the best possible experience for all our website visitors. To achieve this we will:

  • Fix known issues
  • Check all new features in the Haiku Content Management System (CMS), which is used to create this website, for accessibility before they are made available
  • Check all new content for accessibility
  • Train all content editors on accessibility
  • Carry out periodic accessibility checks.

PREPARATION OF THIS ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT

This statement was prepared on 17 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 17 September 2020. This website was last tested on 10 September 2020. The test was carried out using a carefully chosen sample of pages and content types. The pages were checked manually using a combination of the following methods: 

  • Checked against WCAG 2.1 guidelines, with a focus on the items in the WCAG 2.1 Primer Checklist  
  • Viewed without style sheets 
  • Viewed on a small screen 
  • Checked using WebAim’s Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool.