Accessibility
Accessibility statement for learnwelsh.cymru
This accessibility statement applies to the National Centre for Learning Welsh’s information on learnwelsh.cymru.
Using the Website
This website is run by the National Centre for Learning Welsh. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, this means you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible is this
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
- 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
- some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
- you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
- there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:
Email: office@learnwelsh.cymru
Call: 0300 3234324
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in within 15 working days.
If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, please call or email us for directions.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: office@learnwelsh.cymru
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Visiting us in person
If you contact us before your visit we can arrange for a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter to be present.
Find out how to contact us
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The National Centre for Learning Welsh is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 – Level AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions of some of the content on the website, as listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Some interactive eLearning content and functions whereby the very nature of the learning cannot be undertaken in a fully accessible manner (for example: specific learning and assessment in different disciplines of speaking, listening, reading and writing. There are specific tasks and assessments for speaking but if you are unable to speak, the technology and content will not be able to accommodate with equivalence).
Due to language learning, there is some video content where it is not possible for subtitles, transcript or captions to deliver the content in an accessible way (e.g. a video of watching and hearing how a letter or vowel is pronounced)
Due to language learning, there is some audio content where it is not possible for subtitles transcript or captions to deliver the content in an accessible way (e.g. an audio file of how a letter of vowel is pronounced).
Due to Welsh language learning, screen readers do not offer total language equivalence in their interpretation of content into Welsh.
There are instances of text within images which are used to convey critical meaning in the learning and assessment of learning which cannot be meaningfully replaced by alt text, meaning screen readers cannot access and interpret this content
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
We plan to add text alternatives for all images by September 2021 - this is due to the large volume of images and the fact that materials are updated on a regular basis. When we publish new content, we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Disproportionate burden
Navigation and accessing information
It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the ELearning content as it is necessary to have a fixed layout approach to achieve the learning interactions we need within the content.
It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.
Interactive tools and transactions
Some interactive eLearning content and functions whereby the very nature of the learning cannot be undertaken in a fully accessible manner (for example: specific learning and assessment in different disciplines of speaking, listening, reading and writing. There are specific tasks and assessments for speaking but if you are unable to speak, the technology and content will not be able to accommodate with equivalence).
Due to language learning, there is some video content where it is not possible for subtitles, transcript or captions to deliver the content in an accessible way (e.g. a video of watching and hearing how a letter or vowel is pronounced).
Due to language learning, there is some audio content where it is not possible for subtitles transcript or captions to deliver the content in an accessible way (e.g. an audio file of how a letter of vowel is pronounced),
Due to Welsh language learning, screen readers do not offer total language equivalence in their interpretation of content into Welsh.
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.
We will make another assessment in 12 months.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
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.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
An internal group has been established to create an accessibility roadmap in order to
show how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website. The roadmap will be published when it is completed.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 5 October 2020.
The website developer tests all new functions and features of the platform as a part of the sprint based user centric development process. Sprints are clusters of user stories which describe the feature/function from a user’s (or persona) perspective (e.g. As a learner I want to be able to…) . Within the sprint project cycles, user stories are include from accessible users’ perspectives. These form a part of the QA process where the following work is conducted:
- Functional testing – Does the feature or function do what is says it needs to do in the user story
- Technical testing – is the technical solution successfully implemented in terms of code, performance and technologies used
- Usability testing – is the feature/function simple and intuitive to use from the end user’s perspective
- Accessibility testing – Testing against WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 guidelines. We Strive to meet AA levels in testing against Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust aspects of the guidelines.
The following tools and manual methods are used in testing.
- WAVE web accessibility validation tool https://wave.webaim.org/
- Google lighthouse https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse
- W3C Validator https://validator.w3.org/