Accessibility
Our site has been designed to conform with the Equality Act 2010, which replaces the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) in England, Wales and Scotland (in Northern Ireland the DDA is still the law).
The purpose of which is to ensure the information provided on this site is accessible to users who are registered to have a disability that may impact how they navigate, consume, and engage with information on this site.
Our accessibility page outlines the steps we have taken, and the work we’re undertaking to make our website accessible to a variety of users.
Our audiences
The site is designed to be inclusive of a diverse range of audiences, such as: commissioners, policymakers, service users and their families, referrers, partner organisations.
Different ways of viewing site
Our site has been designed to work on desktop PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Editorial standards
We ensure a high-level of editorial standards for our web content. We have taken the following steps to ensure that our content is suitable for a variety of users:
- Ensuring language and presentation of pages is clear and jargon-free throughout.
- Alt text has been added to imagery to provide descriptions.
- Contrast in colours and imagery.
- Minimum font size 16px has been used for readability.
- Our font ‘Lexend’ has been chosen for its accessible design and improved legibility on screens.
- Style sheets are properly coded. H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 headings have been used to make it easier to visually recognise and distinguish page structure.
- Tables are kept to a minimum, but when used, ensuring these are accessible to browsers.
- Context and orientation labelling e.g., site map.
- Site is navigable by using the tab key on webpages.
Subtitles on video content
For some pages we include video content hosted on our YouTube channel. To support those with audio impairments, we are including subtitles on our new video content as part of our video production.
PDF accessibility
PDF stands for Portable Document File. It’s an established way of publishing documents on the web while retaining their original printed design look. To view these documents, you will need a plug-in such as Adobe Acrobat, which you can download free of charge from the Adobe website.
However, we recognise PDF documents may present accessibility challenges to users of assistive technology. Where possible, we have tagged our documents to make it easier for navigation and assistive software to read aloud.
This is an on-going task as part of our accessibility compliance.
External links
Nacro is not responsible for the content of external websites, nor any accessibility issues that may be present on those websites.
Technical standards
The site is built to meet international accessibility criteria W3C and RNIB. This includes:
- Following the W3C accessibility guidelines and following as closely as possible, the four main principles (POUR).
- Aiming to meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standards for all aspects of the design and technical build that Fat Beehive hands to us for content population.
- Assessing third party modules and plugins on their accessibility basis while recognising we can only apply a best endeavour approach.
- Testing the design and code created using Lighthouse accessibility checker, acknowledging this is a binary machine process checking against a spectrum of human needs.
We have also undertaken user testing to ensure the architecture, design, and navigation are simple for users and use analytical software to continue to optimise the user experience.
How accessible is this website?
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible, for example:
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams do not have captions.
Help using this site
It’s important to us that everyone viewing the website can do so easily. We have tried to make this site easy for first time Internet users but if you are stuck, this section is designed to help you.
How do I change text size?
To increase or decrease text size:
- For Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox users: Use the View > Text Size options in the browser menu.
- For Apple Safari users: Use the Safari > Preferences > Appearance options in the browser menu.
How do I get around this site?
If you want to go to different area of the site, click with your mouse button when your cursor is over a link. Clicking on underlined text takes you to a new page. Whenever your cursor looks like a hand rather than an arrow, it means you can click and go to another page.
To get back to the home page at any time click on the logo. Don’t worry if you go to the wrong page, just click Back on the buttons bar of your browser.
How do I change my screen settings?
To change screen settings on a PC running the Windows 95 and upwards operating systems, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Display > Settings and change the desktop area by using the sliding bar.
On an Apple Macintosh, you can click on the Monitor & Sound icon accessed via the Control Panel underneath the Apple Menu to change the resolution.
How do I get back to this site if I leave it?
The address of our site is www.nacro.org.uk . If you want to come back to this site at any time, type in the address in the browser address bar and press enter. To save you doing this more than once, add this page to your Favourites (in Internet Explorer click on Favourites > add to favourites > and then name the page something that you will remember like Nacro). This works in the same way as Favourites.
My browser is out of date – how can I update it?
The latest versions of these browsers can be downloaded free of charge from:
http://www.google.co.uk/chrome
For more help online, you can visit the BBC’s webwise website.
Improvements
We are committed to the continual improvement of the accessibility of our website. We achieve this by doing the following:
- Perform regular accessibility audits.
- Speaking with our Service Users and incorporating their feedback to improve our services.
- Keep up with the latest best practices and evolving standards.
The Nacro website has been tested extensively, however, we are still making changes and tweaks to improve our website.
If you discover an accessibility issue, please email our Web Team: website@nacro.org.uk
This site has been constructed in consultation with Nacro staff group and Employers Forum on Disability.