The accessibility (or not) of our web content
We, as an organisation, but also as individuals want to be as accessible and inclusive as we can. We want to do this in how we are as a team, a workplace, a convener and in all our work with partners. We are doing well in some areas (for example we’ve had positive feedback from members of the public where we’ve facilitated their engagement with data and AI discussions) but we also listen to feedback about areas where we’re not doing so well. One of these is our web site.
When we were established in March 2022 we developed a brand including colour palette and use that across all our work (print, web, shared documents). It is a relatively simple brand that we feel even within three years many in our networks will already recognise.
However we have been made aware over the last few months that the contrast of some of our pages is insufficient for some visual impairments. This is most evident when we have a large amount of text on a page with one of the lighter green backgrounds that we use. If the text has lots of links in it (which present as bold text on our website) this adds to the inaccessibility. This was raised to us directly related to the Data Policy Digest and we took immediate steps to change the default background of these pages to the darkest green we have within our brand palette, which tested better (though still not perfectly) on tools such as the WCAG contrast checker. We also try, wherever possible, if a resource contains a lot of text to link to a Google Doc rather than add it to a webpage. We make all our reports open in this way.
We recognise that there are still some pages and areas within pages where this contrast is not as significant as it should be and we recognise that this places a burden on the individual with the visual impairment to adapt - rather than us adapting to them.
I wanted to note here what feedback we’ve had and how we’ve responded. Have the changes we’ve made been enough? If you’re still having problems accessing our content please let me know. We are open to challenges and to ideas - we’d love to hear from you.