We want everyone to be able to use our website fully. The is particularly important to us because we know that some people with visible differences also have disabilities.
We have designed this website to be as user-friendly as possible and to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. This is an internationally recognised standard on how to make websites accessible.
On this page, we explain what we have done to meet these accessibility standards. We also provide links to other organisations that support those who wish to change their settings to make it easier to use websites, including ours.
Website accessibility standards
There are three levels of conformance to the WCAG – A, AA, and AAA, with AAA being the highest.
We are aiming to meet or exceed the guidelines to level AA for all areas of the website that we control. Areas that may fall outside of our control include third-party plugins and embedded elements such as podcasts and videos.
However, we know there are some elements of the site that are not yet fully accessible, which we are working to address. For example:
- Some of our downloadable documents in PDF format were not designed for accessibility when they were created.
- We do not yet have transcripts for all of our podcasts.
- Some of our infographics may not have sufficient colour contrast.
What we’ve done to make our website accessible
This section outlines the work we’ve done to ensure this website is accessible.
Content and structure
- To make our content easy to read, we have tried to write in short sentences and paragraphs.
- We have tried to avoid complex words. Where this is not possible, for example when talking about a condition, we have explained the word or linked to a source for more information.
- We have used headings, subheadings and lists to structure content.
- Where relevant, distinct sections have been written for a particular audience. For example, we have a section for children and young people who have a visible difference, one for parents of a child with a visible difference, and another for professional audiences.
The sitemap shows the structure and organisation of the website.
Website design
This website follows the principles of universal design, so that:
- It provides sufficient colour contrast between elements, such as text and background colours.
- Both text and pages are scalable.
- There is a visual focus around menu items, links and forms. The focus indicators are coloured outlines to help people know what part of the site they are focusing on when using a keyboard, mouse or screen reader.
- Correct mark-up has been used to show content hierarchy on a page for screen readers.
- It is navigable using a keyboard.
Multimedia
- All images, unless decorative, have informative alt text for screen readers to describe the image. Many of our images have captions.
- Videos created by us include subtitles.
- Transcripts for the latest Voices of Visible Difference podcast are available below each podcast where it is embedded on this website and on Audioboom. We are in the process of creating transcripts for the remaining podcasts.
Browser support
Our website may not work properly on older browsers. We aim to support the latest versions of the following browsers.
- Google Chrome for all platforms
- Safari for Apple devices, version
- Microsoft Edge for Windows
- Mozilla Firefox for all platforms
This will be tested on a regular basis. Please note that there are always minor differences in the display between browsers.
If you use accessibility tools
Our website should be compatible with most up-to-date versions of screen readers, magnifiers and speech recognition software.
Help with changing your settings
AbilityNet offers support and advice on changing your settings to make your device easier to use, such as how to make the text larger or make your device talk to you.
Feedback
We welcome feedback to improve the accessibility of this website. Please email [email protected] or use the form on our contact us page if you:
- Have issues using the website or accessing information on it.
- Think there is an accessibility issue on this website that we need to address.