12th June 2020 Accessibility statement for Disability Arts International site

Contents of this statement

  1. Using this website
  2. Increasing access on different devices
  3. Overview of how accessible the website is
  4. Contacting us
  5. Technical information about this site’s accessibility 
  6. How we tested this website
  7. What we’re doing to improve accessibility

1. Using the Disability Arts International website

This website is owned by the British Council and it is run by a small dedicated team. We want this website to be as accessible as possible and have considered accessibility from the outset of the 

website’s redevelopment. Working with the website developers, we have run regular access reviews and carried out access user testing with assistive technology users during site development. During this development process we’ve strived to prioritise access within the constraints of budget, technology, and staff capacity. 

In this section we outline some of the access features that are built into the site, how to contact us to make suggestions for improving accessibility, and how you can get content in alternative formats if something is not accessible to you.

On this website you should be able to:

● zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen

● navigate the website using just a keyboard

● navigate the website using speech recognition software

● listen to the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

● Change the size of the browser window but still read the text – as it will reflow in a single column

2. Increasing access on different devices

There are changes you can make to different devices to increase access to our site, depending on how you prefer to access the web, including:

  • Speech output
  • Magnifying the screen
  • Making the mouse point bigger
  • Slowing down the mouse speed
  • Using the keyboard to move around a website

Go to the AbilityNet website for advice on making your device easier to use.

3. Overview of how accessible the website is

The site includes the following features to increase accessibility:

  • Text content written in plain English to make it easier to understand
  • A logical layout and easy to find contact details
  • The use of headings to split up the content visually and to improve navigation by screen-reader users
  • The use of alternative descriptions to describe the majority of images

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible and will work to rectify them and re-test with a range of assistive technology users. This includes:

  • Missing alternative text for some images
  • Links with missing text 
  • Missing or skipped heading levels 
  • Some externally produced videos that are embedded in the website from elsewhere do not have captions or audio descriptions – ideally they’d have captions or audio descriptions making them accessible to screen-reader users
  • Links with missing or suspicious text 

3.1. What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format, e.g. large print or Easy Read, please contact us:  info@disabilityartsinternational.org

3.2. Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If any parts of the website are not accessible for you, please get in touch with us. In particular, if: 

  • You cannot access the information on this website and would like to discuss the options of providing content in an alternative format
  • You would like to ask anything or tell us anything about the accessibility of our websites

We’re always looking for ways to improve the accessibility of this website and welcome your feedback. If you find any problems that aren’t listed in this statement or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, get in touch. 

We aim to get back to you within 15 working days. 

4. Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We do not have a venue or public office, but please email using the contact details outlined above if you’d like to get in touch.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

5. Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

In this section, you will find out more about the accessibility of our website and how far it conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 level AA. The known issues are not an exhaustive list, but we have summarised the main problems we found on the site.  

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below: 

  • Missing alternative text 
  • Some missing headings 
  • Missing/empty/orphaned form labels
  • Linked images missing alternative text
  • Redundant links, redundant title text and suspicious link text 

5.1. Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

 The content listed below is not accessible for the following reasons: 

Accessibility problemsWCAG 2.1 criteria fails onWhy it’s a problemHow to resolveDate to fix
1. Some images don’t have a text alternative, so the information in them isn’t accessible to people using a screen reader. Some linked images are also missing alternative text. 1.1.1. Non-text content
2.4.4. Link purpose (in context) 
Without alternative text, the content of an image will not be available to screen reader users or when the image is unavailable. When navigating to a button, descriptive text must be presented to the screen reader users otherwise they won’t know the function of the buttonAdd alt text to all images old and new. 1st December 2020.  
2. Empty and unordered headings This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.3.1.   Info and relationships 2.4.1.   Bypass blocks2.4.6.   Headings and labels  Some users, especially keyboard and screen reader users, navigate by heading elements. An empty heading will present no information and might be confusing. Also need to check where some heading levels have been skipped, to help with navigation. Review all the headings in the site and add them as a matter of course from this date.1st December 2020
3. Redundant links, redundant title text and suspicious link text2.4.4. Link purpose (in context) When adjacent links go to the same location, this results in additional navigation, repetition and ‘clutter’ for keyboard and screen reader users. Combine the links if possible. In some areas title text is the same as the text or alternative text – the advisory information or the title attribute shouldn’t be identical to the element text/alternative text. ‘Suspicious link text’ – some link text contains extraneous text or might not make sense out of context – links should clearly describe the destination or function of the link. Ambiguous and extraneous text such as ‘click here’ can cause confusion.Reword the text so that it’s more descriptive of the destination of the link when read out of context.  1st December 2020

5.2. Disproportionate burden

All videos commissioned by the British Council, will have captions and some form of audio description (whether text or audio-based). However, some externally produced videos that are embedded in the website from elsewhere do not have captions and/or audio descriptions. As we do not own this content it is technically impossible to implement these features unilaterally. 

We have assessed the process for making the external videos accessible, and it would involve working with each external artist, company or organisation to make their pre-existing content accessible. The website hosts dozens of externally produced videos, and it would be dependent on the external party agreeing and giving us access to their content in a timely fashion, which simply cannot be guaranteed. 

We consider that the impact of fully meeting the requirements is too much for the organisation to manage at this stage, and that the requirement to make all videos accessible would be a ‘disproportionate burden’ as it would require using up a large amount of the organisation’s budget for the year, and divert money from the running of the website. 

Into the future, we will continue to make strong recommendations at the point of submission of all video content that it is provided with captions and some form of audio description, including links to resources and examples on how to achieve this. 

We will review the accessibility of the video content at the next access statement review date, and reassess our approach at that point. 

5.3. Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Some access problems fall outside the scope of the accessibility regulations: 

  • PDFs and other documents

Some older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services, however get in touch with us if there is some content that you can’t access and we’ll suggest an alternative. 

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

  • Live video and Images

Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions – live). We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. The user generated video on the site is outside of our control, although we will continue to encourage artists to make their content accessible to all. 

We aim to provide alt text to all images that convey information to users. However, some of our content is user-generated and although we encourage contributors to describe their content for all users, some might not have been added. 

  • Some external sites that we link to might not be fully accessible

Some of the content and information that we link to might not meet accessibility standards – we are not responsible for the accessibility of external content and sites. However, where there is a choice, we will always choose the most accessible options.

6. How we tested this website for accessibility

We built in accessibility from the start of the site redesign, running regular access checks and user tests to ensure that the target users’ points of view were included at every stage. There were 4 main stages of testing:

  • ‘Wireframe’ testing of early plans of the site to test the site’s logic and usability 
  • ‘Flat design’ testing of the site – testing usability / visual accessibility 
  • ‘Access user testing’ an interactive version of the site with a range of assistive technology users to test technical and overall accessibility of the site
  • Testing the code with an automated validator, against WCAG 2.1. AA

In ‘access user testing’ we tested technical and practical accessibility of the site with a range of technology users, including those using: 

  • Speech input and output 
  • Adapted hardware and tracker-ball 
  • Screen magnification
  • Screen-readers (including JAWS and NVDA)

During testing an external facilitator referred to questions in a test script, with typical user journeys and scenarios to help participants explore each section of the site. The test facilitator captured their feedback and any access barriers that they encountered on the way. 

All findings were rounded up into a report which included the access auditor’s recommendations for improving the overall usability and accessibility of the site, and were shared with and implemented by the site developers.  

Most recently we have tested the site and content for accessibility using the automated validator Pope Tech https://pope.tech – to highlight any access problems in relation to WCAG 2.1, and we have included this information in the accessibility statement. 

7. What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are committed to providing a website that is accessible to all and will review this access statement on a regular basis, at least every 6 months from the date of publication of this statement. 

At that stage will will review the issues listed under ‘Technical information about this website’s accessibility’ and check whether the accessibility problems have been resolved by the date specified. We will also check the accessibility of new content that has been added since launch. 

Other ways that we are working to make sure that our website and content is accessible to all include: 

  • Raising general awareness of accessibility across the disability arts sector
  • Raising awareness within the organisation
  • Doing more research into how to increase accessibility of content including videos and audio, PDFs and Powerpoint documents 
  • Updating our guidelines for external developers

This statement was updated and added on 12th June 2020.