Accessibility Statement

Last updated: 20 April 2021

This website has been designed and developed with the needs of people with sight loss and disability in mind. We’ve also taken on board international guidance and best practice on web accessibility.

We’re committed to ensuring everyone can access and use our website on multiple devices. This includes people with sight loss, and hearing, mobility and cognitive impairments. If you have any comments and or suggestions about our website, please contact [email protected].

Website accessibility conformance statement

We are committed to testing and delivering all web content on the website to WCAG 2.1, level A and AA compliance. We have achieved this by testing our web pages and content against the new WCAG 2.1 checkpoints and made changes to ensure we meet the new success criteria. Our site also undergoes user testing by blind and partially sighted people.

The checkpoints we test against are taken from the technical standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). We test using this standard to ensure that we’re meeting their responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 and the EU Web Accessibility Directive.

We’re always working to make improvements to the accessibility and usability of the website, especially where content and delivery is reliant on third party providers.

We try our best to ensure we test with a range of technologies, but we can’t commit to testing every browser version with every version of assistive technology, nor testing on every operating system version or mobile handset type. We focus on testing with more recent technology, as newer assistive technologies provide the best accessibility support for the user.

We test the website using the following browsers and assistive technology combinations:

  • Microsoft Edge and JAWS 2020 (latest version).
  • Firefox and NVDA (latest version).
  • Chrome with JAWS 2020 (latest version) and NVDA (latest version).
  • Apple iOS – Safari (latest version) on iPhone and iPad with VoiceOver and Magnification.
  • Android – Chrome with Talkback and Magnification.
  • Chrome and Dragon naturally speaking.
  • Windows High contrast mode (Edge and Firefox).
  • In browser magnification up to 400%.
  • Keyboard navigation only.

Image alt text and accessibility

As standard, we only use alt text where an image conveys essential information for the meaning of the webpage – for example a diagram about how to do something. Where an image is purely decorative, we don't use alt text as this is superfluous information and extra “noise” that someone using a screen reader will have to get through before reaching the essential information on a page.

Reporting an accessibility issue

We are always aiming to improve the accessibility and usability of all our systems and services. We are pleased to note that our accessibility audit did not discover any major accessibility issues on the RNIB Sight advice website at the time of writing this statement.

If you experience any accessibility issues while using our website, please let us know by emailing [email protected].

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