In case you don't know, digital accessibility is the practice of making digital content easy for everyone to find, understand, navigate, and use, no matter their abilities or what device they're using. <\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n 'Digital content' can include:<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n Accessible content makes it easier for everyone to find, read, and understand the information they need.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It helps people. And who wouldn't want to help people?<\/p>\n Accessible digital content is essential for people with:<\/p>\n So basically, it's good for everyone.<\/p>\n It's a legal requirement for public sector websites and apps to be accessible. This is<\/span> set out in The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018<\/a>, which you're welcome to read if you really want to get into it. <\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n Then there's the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission<\/a>, which says businesses must make reasonable adjustments so disabled people can use their services the same way non-disabled people can.<\/span><\/p>\n And, to top it all off, we've got the Equality Act 2010<\/a>, which says <\/span>employers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure disabled people are not disadvantaged when at work. <\/span><\/p>\n To make sure we get it right and meet the legal requirements, there are certain governing bodies whose standards we have to conform to.<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n The World Wide Web Consortium<\/a> (W3C) is, in its own words:<\/span><\/p>\n ...an international public-interest non-profit organization where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n W3C was founded by The Creator (of the World Wide Web, at least), Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who knows a bit about the internet, so it's worth listening to their advice.\u00a0 <\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n As part of its mission to help the internet be its best self, W3C created and maintains the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG - usually pronounced 'W'cag'). The guidelines describe how to make websites and web content:<\/span><\/p>\n There are three levels of compliance with WCAG: A, AA, and AAA. <\/span>The lowest level is A, which only includes the most basic guidelines, and the highest is AAA.<\/p>\n The Government Digital Service (GDS)\u200b assesses public sector websites, including ours, to make sure we're compliant with WCAG to level AA. For website content, this broadly means:<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n YOU ARE!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Ok, that was a bit dramatic, sorry. But if you create and edit content on the website, make and share digital documents with colleagues, or even send emails, you have a responsibility to make that content accessible.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n How about some guidance?<\/p>\n We've got a lot of guidance on the website to help you create web content. There's guidance about using Typecase<\/a>, <\/span>writing clear and consistent copy, formatting content, and using videos and images.<\/span>\u00a0Accessibility is fundamental to all of these, so we've integrated our accessibility guidance into our existing content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, if you're creating a web page and want a reminder about how to create headings, for example, our headings guidance<\/a> will tell you how to do it, but also how to do it accessibly. <\/span>This means you can make sure your content is accessible from the start, not as an added bonus or 'nice-to-have'. <\/span>\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n Digital accessibility isn't just about the website, though. We've also written guidance about making accessible emails<\/a> and digital documents<\/a>.<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n You can find all the guidance for making accessible digital content on our new(ish) Digital accessibility guidance page<\/a>.<\/p>\n As always, we were nothing if not thorough.<\/p>\n We started off by looking at websites for:<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n This was a benchmarking exercise to see what guidance and other information those websites \u200bincluded and how they integrated their accessibility guidance into other content.<\/p>\n Once we'd worked out where we could integrate accessibility into existing guidance, we set about editing over<\/span> 60 pages with varying degrees of information about making content accessible.<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n We also created eight new guides where we thought we needed more detailed guidance. For example, we now have guidance on writing accessible page titles and about making images accessible.<\/span>\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n We reviewed all our guidance against the WCAG success criteria. W3C released a new version of WCAG while we were working on the guidance, so we also had to make sure we were covering any new requirements. <\/span><\/p>\n We got to know WCAG pretty well!\u00a0<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n While we were researching and writing the guidance, we had a lot of very helpful support and feedback from the Assistive Technology team. They provide assistive technology for staff and students<\/a> and run workshops about making emails accessible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, I made that word up, but I stand by it.<\/p>\n\n
\u200bWhy digital accessibility matters<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
Obviously, it's the right thing to do\u00a0\u200b<\/h3>\n
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It's also the law\u200b<\/h3>\n
\u200bWeb accessibility standards<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
World Wide Web Consortium<\/h3>\n
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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines<\/h3>\n
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Government Digital Service<\/h3>\n
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\u200bWho's responsible for making digital content accessible<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
How we can help you<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
How we made the guidance<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n
Researched other people's guidance\u00a0\u200b<\/h3>\n
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Edited our existing guidance\u200b<\/h3>\n
Drafted\u00a0new\u00a0pages for more detailed guidance\u200b<\/h3>\n
Made sure we covered\u00a0all\u00a0necessary WCAG\u00a0criteria\u200b<\/h3>\n
\u200bSpecial thanks\u200b<\/h3>\n
Go forth and accessibilise<\/h2>\n