Introduction
People In Action has a website
accessibility policy.
People in Action maintains good
practice in areas of website accessibility and strives to conform
to the ‘Priority Level 2 (or level Double A) as outlined
in the set of guidelines produced by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
In the UK the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA)
is the legislation that protects the rights of disable people in the
provision of goods and services. The requirement to have an accessible
website under this legislation has been in force since 1999.
People In Action has developed
strategies which respond to the accessibility issues of its
website. These are included in the statement of commitment below:
-
Statement of Commitment
1.1. People In Action is committed to making its
output as accessible as possible to all audiences (including
those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments)
to fulfil the statutory obligations defined by the Disability
Discrimination Act.
1.2. Unless it can be shown to be technically or practically
impossible, all content MUST be made accessible.
Scope
2.1 These standards relate to all of the People In Action
websites.
Editorial Content
3.1 You MUST provide an accessible alternative to any
inaccessible content, UNLESS this can be proven to be technically
or practically impossible.
3.1.1. An accessible alternative is defined as one that
meets the information, educational and entertainment objectives of
the original content.
3.1.2. If your content is inaccessible, then you MUST
provide an accessible alternative.
3.1.3. If your content relies on Plug-Ins or JavaScript
to deliver accessibility features, you MUST provide an accessible
alternative that does not rely on Plug-ins or JavaScript.
3.2. All accessible alternative content MUST be updated
in line with and at the same time as the original content.
3.3. You SHOULD divide large blocks of information into
manageable chunks e.g. use short paragraphs.
3.4. You MUST provide an appropriate text equivalent
for each non-text element of the core content.
3.5. You SHOULD specify the expansion of each abbreviation
or acronym in a document where it first occurs.
3.6. All pages MUST use heading elements.
Language and Style
4.1 You SHOULD use plain language and avoid jargon.
4.2. Where the language in the document changes (e.g.
from English to Welsh), you MUST indicate this with a tag containing
a Lang attribute.
4.3. All text of more than two lines MUST be left aligned
(if published language is naturally ranged left e.g. English), except
for tabular data and where the formatting is integral to the meaning
of the text, e.g. poetry.
Editorial Images
5.1. Editorial content MUST make sense without reference
to images or diagrams, UNLESS the subject matter can only be displayed
via images (e.g. a 'spot the difference' game).
5.2. Instructional images SHOULD make sense without
text e.g. a user must be able to follow a set of diagrammatical instructions
without the help of a text explanation.
5.3. You MAY support instructions with diagrams.
5.4. Where appropriate, you SHOULD use pictures and
symbols in addition to text.
5.5. You SHOULD support your "calls to action"
with icons.
Movement
6.1. You MUST NOT cause an item on the screen to flicker
6.2. You MUST NOT use blinking, flickering or flashing
objects.
Audio and Visual content (A/V)
7.1. You SHOULD provide subtitles/captions (that can
be turned off and on) for all AV content. This includes AV content
featured in interactive features or Flash games.
Frames
8.1. You MUST describe the purpose of frames and how
they relate to each other if this is not obvious using the frame titles
alone.
Forms
9.1. You MUST provide a "submit" button on
all forms.
Documents
10.1. All downloadable documents including PDFs MUST
have a link to the Adobe Website available, for downloading appropriate
software to be able to open the documents.
10.2. All PDFs MUST comply with Adobe's
accessibility guidelines.
Links
11.1. Where possible all pages SHOULD provide users
with the option to bypass groups of related links e.g. "Skip
to Content", "Skip to Local Navigation" and "Skip
to Global Navigation". This option SHOULD be the first thing
found by screen readers i.e. first thing inside the body tag.
11.2. You MUST provide text links for each active region
of an image map.
11.3. All links to video content SHOULD be accompanied
by an image that encapsulates what the programme is or is about.
Accessibility Options
12.1. Page layout MUST accommodate the enlarging of
text.
12.2. You MUST use style sheets to control layout and
presentation.
Structure/ Function/ Layout
13.1. All text based content SHOULD be published on
a plain solid background.
13.2. You MUST NOT create periodically auto-refreshing
pages in their default state, i.e. you can allow an opt-in auto-refresh.
13.3. You MUST NOT break browser back button functionality.
13.4. New windows MUST NOT be opened from a page UNLESS
they are pop-up.
13.5. You MUST clearly label links (in the text of the
page) which launch pop-ups so that the audience know they are launching
a pop-up.
13.6. Pop-ups MUST NOT appear without being intentionally
opened by the user.
13.7. You MUST provide consistent navigation.
13.8. You MUST clearly define the different sections
of the page and ensure consistent location of screen objects.
The Communications Strategy Group will manage and review
the Accessibility Policy, for the website, in the future. This will
be done with the aid of the guide: ‘How to commission & design
accessible websites’, produced by the ICT Hub and other resources
available on the internet. This document was put together with the
help of the BBC Website Accessibility Policy.
