Accessibility Known Issues

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons

Some images do not have a meaningful text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1.

• By September 2021, all images will have meaningful text alternative. Purely decorative images will have blank alt text and infographics / charts will have a link to a full description of the content.

When page text is enlarged up to 200%, some images appear low resolution or pixelated. While the text content remains fully usable and thus this is not a failure of the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4, poor image quality when enlarged reduces the experience for people with mild visual disabilities.

• By September 2021, all images will be at an appropriate resolution so as not to lose significant quality when enlarged up to 200%.

All our video published before 23 September 2020 does not have instructional content and therefore is exempt from the accessibility regulations.

Not all video content has a transcript, making the content inaccessible to users who cannot see. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.1.

• All new videos published post 23 September 2020 will have a transcript.

Not all video content has captions that are synchronised to the audio content of the video, making them inaccessible to people who cannot hear. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2.

• All new video and audio content published post 23 September 2020 will have captions.

Not all page titles are unique and indicate the page’s topic or purpose, which can result in people with cognitive disabilities being unable to quickly orientate themselves within the site and identify the purpose of the page without interpreting its entire contents. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2.

• All page titles will be reviewed and fixed by September 2021.

Not all sections have consistent navigation. This makes it harder for people to learn how to navigate our website or develop strategies (like using screen reader shortcuts) for more efficient navigation. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.3.

• All sections will be reviewed and fixed by September 2021. 

Many of our tables do not have a table header row, making them less accessible to people using assistive technology. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1.

• All tables will be reviewed with appropriate headers added by September 2021.

Not all headings are hierarchical, making the site more difficult for users of assistive technology such as screen readers to access. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1.

The content of some pages is not in logical order if the styling is removed through use of assistive technologies. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2.

Headings have on occasion been used to highlight information rather than for headings, making the site more difficult for users of assistive technology to use. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1 and 2.4.6.

• All pages containing these issues will be reviewed and fixed by September 2021.

Some links do not use text that is meaningful out of context, which can result in users of screen readers not being able to understand the link without reading the surrounding text and users of speech recognition software being less able to target links accurately using voice commands. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4.

• All links will be reviewed and fixed by September 2021

Some links to external sites or files open in a new browser window and some open in the same browser window making the site behaviour unpredictable, which can result in the site being less accessible for people with some cognitive disabilities and people who use screen readers. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.2.

• All links to external websites and files will be reviewed and will open in a new browser window by September 2021.

Carousels do not have obvious controls for users to stop the auto-rotate, which can cause people with cognitive disability that affect focus and concentration to be distracted making the site less accessible. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.2.

• We are working with our developers to fix this issue as soon as possible, including adding information in the code for a screen reader to be aware that to stop the carousel from moving, the user will need to move their mouse over it.

Some elements have low contrast levels (e.g. image copyright), which can result in text being difficult to read, especially for people with low vision, poor eyesight or colour blindness. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.3.

• We are working with our developers to implement a fix for this issue over the coming months.

Some pages use visual characteristics (such as a diagram of the BHF CRM structure of Themes and Membership) to communicate information, which means that users who are unable to see or recognise information communicated using sensory characteristics are unable to perceive that information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.3.

• All pages with this issue will be reviewed and fixed by September 2021.

The line height, spacing between paragraphs and letter and word spacing cannot be changed without loss of content or functionality. This means that people with low vision, dyslexia or cognitive disabilities may struggle to read the text, or lose content or functionality if they try to adjust the line height or spacing. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12.

When using mobile or tablet devices, it may not be possible to dismiss or interact with some extra content (i.e. pop-up images) without moving focus or it disappearing. This may cause problems for disabled or sight impaired users as pop-up content may be accidentally triggered or pop-up content may not stay on the screen. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.13.

• We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these issues over the coming months.

Many of the documents (Word and PDF) on this site do not meet accessibility standards, which could result in them not being fully accessible to users of screen readers.

• Documents that are essential to the service we provide will be either converted to HTML pages, have plain text equivalents supplied, or be replaced with accessible versions by September 2021.

The CMS code is being checked to ensure that it meets the robust accessibility criteria 4.1.1, 4.1.2 & 4.1.3.

• This will be done as part of an accessibility upgrade of the Haiku Content Management System to be completed in Autumn 2020.

Our site includes content pulled from the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics, Radcliffe Department of Medicine and Nuffield Department of Population Health websites. We are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party content or to other sites we link to.

This includes:

• News articles
• Vimeo and YouTube videos
• Individual researcher profile pages

We will endeavour to work with the Communications Officers from these departments to provide an accessible alternative to any third-party content that isn’t compliant.

This site has a number of Word and PDF documents which were published before September 2018. These aren’t essential to the service we provide and won’t be replaced. If you experience any difficulties accessing these documents, please email ocs.website@cardiov.ox.ac.uk.

This site has pre-recorded video content that was published before 23 September 2020, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations.

This site contains archived content, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations. The archived content is mainly internal announcements, hidden webpages and sections that are not currently relevant but archived for potential future review, and external news stories published prior to 23 September 2018, but which have not since been updated.