Accessibility

As well as it being good for everyone, it’s also legally required under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, the Equality Act 2010, and the Public sector equality duty.

Your website will meet the legal requirements if you meet the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standard.

The Website Builder platform is built with accessibility in mind and all features are tested before release. If issues are identified, we have the expertise in the team to resolve them. 

However the content of your website is just as important for accessibility as the features used to build it. As a site editor, you play an important role in making sure the content you create is accessible.

Accessibility is good for everyone

Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “no-one in my audience has an disability, so it doesn’t need to be accessible”.

In the UK, 1 in 5 people have a disability – this could include visual, hearing, motor (affecting fine movement) or cognitive (affecting memory and thinking).

But, accessibility does not just apply to disabled people – all users will have different needs at different times and in different circumstances. Someone’s ability to use your website could be affected by their:

• location – they could be in a noisy environment or area with slow wifi
• health – they may be tired, recovering from a stroke or have a broken arm
• equipment – they could be on a mobile phone or using an older browser

Thinking about accessibility from the beginning will help you create content that does not exclude anybody.​

Accessibility tips

You can check your content using the Worcestershire county council’s SCULPT framework 6 basic principles for creating accessible content:

• structure: use heading styles in your page and documents
• colour and contrast: consider the colours you use and the contrast between text and background
• use of images: use alternative text on your images
• links: describe your link, never use ‘click here’
• plain English: use clear and uncomplicated language with no jargon
• table structure: use simple tables without merged or split cells

Structure

Giving your content a clear structure and hierarchy will help people to understand the flow and order of information on your page.

Screen readers recognise the hierarchy you create so they can read out the sections in the right order.

You can create a content structure and hierarchy using the standard text blocks in Website Builder. ‘Heading 1’ will be your page titles, then use ‘Heading 2’ and ‘Heading 3’ accordingly to give your content a logical structure.

For example, if you look on this page, ‘Accessibility’ is the H1 page title, ‘Accessibility tips’ is an H2, and ‘Structure’ is an H3.

Do not skip heading levels, for example jumping from a heading 1 to a heading 3. 

Do not manually format paragraph text in bold or change the size to make it look like a heading. Headings must use the heading block.

Colour and contrast

Use sufficient contrast for text and background colours so that everyone can tell them apart.

The colours of your website will normally be pre-set by the Website Builder team before handing over to you and they’ll be checked for accessibility. But the platform does allow you to make design colour changes to colours, by adding backgrounds to paragraphs and other content blocks and changing the colour of the text.

Website Builder will show you a warning if you choose a poor contrast: “This color combination may be hard for people to read. Try using a darker background color and/or a brighter text color.”

This is an example of a colour contrast that would fail.

This is an example of a colour contrast that would pass.

You can use online tools such as WebAIM’s contrast checker or the WAVE browser extension to check your colour contrasts.

It’s also important to ensure that colour is not the only means of conveying information, for example in a chart or graph. This is because people who are blind, have low vision, or are colour-blind might miss out on the meaning conveyed by colours alone. Use other distinguishing factors too, such as labels.

Use of images, audio and video

Make sure there’s a text alternative for images that give meaning to the page (not purely decorative images).​ The WebAIM alternative text guide explains how to write good alt text. The W3C image alt text decision tree helps you decide if images need alt text.

If there’s information in your image, for example in a chart or infographic, describe it in the main page text too.

Read more about making images accessible

For video or audio content, always have a transcript and subtitles. If you are adding a video, check that people can access it on the hosting platform you’ve chosen, for example YouTube.

W3C has guidance on making audio and video media accessible

Links

When you add a link into your content, use descriptive, meaningful link text, never use ‘click here’.​​

​This is because screen reader users often scan through lists of links and read the link out of context of the surrounding text.​

Links should describe what you’ll get if you click them.

Your links should open in the same browser window or tab.​

Avoid using URLs (for example, www.thisisaurl.gov.uk) as links unless they’re easily recognisable or very short. Users might not activate the link as they’re unsure where it will take them. It could also lead to audio overload for screen reader users.

Plain English

You should write clear and concise content with the reader in mind and with the right tone of voice. Plain English means avoiding using long overly complex language (‘jargon’), unexplained acronyms and long words when a short one will do.

It’s important because short words and sentences are better for users with cognitive impairments or learning disabilities.​ But also, research shows that higher literacy people prefer plain English because it allows them to understand the information as quickly as possible. Read about plain English in this blog post from the Government Digital Service.

Read our tips about writing for the web

Tables

Only use tables to present data. Tables should not be used for cosmetic changes to your page or document layout, for example to present a list because you think it looks better that way. 

If you need to use a table, use a simple table structure with column headers and make sure that the tables do not contain split cells, merged cells, or nested tables (tables within tables).

​​This is because badly created tables can cause difficulties for screen​​ readers or for those tabbing through information on a web page or document.​

Accessible documents

The most accessible format for your content is usually a HTML page (a web page). It’s hard to make some types of documents accessible. They can also be hard for people to change to use as they want to.​​

​​Stop and think if a document is the best way to communicate your information.​​ Could it be published as a web page?​

Microsoft Word documents can be very accessible, but if you have a choice, an HTML web page is usually a better choice.

PDF, PowerPoint and other similar formats will usually have more inherent accessibility issues or will be more difficult for the author to make accessible.

If there is a clear need for producing content as a document attachment, you can read guidance on how to make documents accessible:

• DWP Accessibility Manual guidance on document structure
• GOV.UK guidance for publishing accessible documents
• Microsoft guidance on creating accessible Office documents
• Adobe Acrobat guidance on creating accessible PDFs
• Government Analysis Function accessible spreadsheets checklist

Accessibility support and training

If you work in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), you can contact the MoJ Digital Accessibility team. They can help with advice, training, checks and audits about accessibility for websites, documents and digital applications. There is no cost to your team for their services.

Other useful resources are available in the:

• DWP Accessibility Manual
• Accessibility and inclusive design manual from the Department for Education

If you have any specific Website Builder accessibility questions, you can contact us.

Testing for accessibility

You must do an accessibility test or audit of your website or software before you make it live. The Website Builder team can usually do this for you before launch, but you’ll need to continue to check your site annually or when you make any big changes.

Testing your website helps you make sure that there are no barriers for users. It also gives you the information you need to write your accessibility statement.

GOV.UK has guidance on how to test your website for accessibility. It includes how to do a basic accessibility check.

Accessibility statements

Public sector websites must publish an accessibility statement. GOV.UK has guidance on accessibility statements, including a sample template.

The Website Builder team will usually create and publish an accessibility statement for you when your website goes live, but it’s your responsibility to keep it up to date.

You should review your site’s accessibility statement at least once a year or when there are major changes.