We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website and are actively working to make it accessible and easy to use for everyone.
Accessibility tools
Recite Me is a web accessibility tool that lets visitors view and use our website in a way that works best for them. We’ve added the Recite Me web accessibility and language toolbar to our website to make it accessible and inclusive for as many people as possible.
It helps 1 in 5 people in the UK who have a disability, including those with common conditions like sight loss and dyslexia, access our website in the way that suits them best. It also meets the needs of the 4.2 million people in the UK who speak a language other than English at home, by translating our web content into over 100 different languages.
You can open the Recite Me Accessibility Toolbar by clicking on the ‘Accessibility tools’ link which appears at the top of every page on our website. The Recite Me toolbar opens and displays a range of different options for customising the way the website looks and ways you can interact with the content.
With Recite Me you can:
- Translate text into over 100 languages
- Read website text aloud (including PDFs)
- Download the text as an MP3 file to play it where and when it suits you
- Change font sizes and colours
- Customise background-colours
- Translate text into more than 100 different languages
- Highlight a word and use the dictionary or thesaurus to learn the meaning
You can also use the accessibility features on your computer to change settings and customise our website to best suit your needs. AbilityNet has advice to help make your device easier to use.
Internet Crystal Mark accreditation
We hold Internet Crystal Mark accreditation from the Plain English Campaign. This means our site’s language, accessibility, navigation, design and layout work separately and together to promote clarity. The website is reviewed each year, to make sure it still meets the required standards.
Conformance status
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. This is website is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA standard. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.
Assessment approach
This website undergoes automated testing against the W3C WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines using the Siteimprove tool. This tool scans 100% of our web pages on a regular basis.
The reports generated by Siteimprove are reviewed by the Digital Communications Team, with any actions taken and prioritised into our future work.
Non-accessible content
We know there are some accessibility issues on our website and we are working with our content and technical teams to fix these.
- Our FAQ accordions include a back to top of page link that is missing a text alternative
- Element IDs in our main and footer navigation are not unique
- Iframes that are used to display embedded content do not have a text alternative to explain their content and purpose
- An information panel on our website footer does not meet the minimum colour contrast requirements
- Some of our older PDF documents may not work correctly with screen readers
Reporting accessibility problems
We are always working to improve the accessibility of our website. If you find anything difficult to use, please email web@sgn.co.uk to let us know.