Accessibility Statement

Scope and ownership

This accessibility statement applies to the ENHANCE platform and the interactive modules. This is maintained by the Education and Training Foundation.

Using the website

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. Our accessibility investments mean you should be able to personalise your experience in the ways listed below. Accessible content can make you more productive if you know how to use it. We provide some hints and links in the sections below. Suggestions are offered in good faith for user convenience but please note that plugins and software are used at your own risk. The Education and Training Foundation is not responsible for any issues arising from the use of tools or plugins over which they have no influence or control. Although plugin suggestions are for Chrome, similar (and sometimes the same) plugins exist for other browsers.

Viewing the website the way you want to

  • The web content and the interactive resources can be viewed on a wide range of devices including both landscape and portrait orientation on a smart phone.
  • Page content reflows to fit the resolution and orientation of your device. The content will also reflow if you zoom-in to the screen: we have tested this up to a zoom level of 300%. The interactive resources are also responsive to 300%.
    • On a laptop/PC browser, you can magnify text either by
      • increasing the font size in your browser settings (or with browser plugins - for example A+ Font SizeChangerLite for Chrome) or
      • using the inbuilt browser zoom function - CTRL + (Windows) or CMD + (Mac).
      Using a mix of both techniques can give fine-tuned viewing experiences.
    • On a mobile device get magnification and reflow by changing the browser default font size and default display size in the accessibility settings menu.
  • Default colour contrasts meet accessibility guidelines on most pages with a few minor exceptions (for example some logos and hyperlinks in footers). You can change the default background colours using browser plugins like HighContrast or ScreenShader.
  • People using keyboard navigation can easily see where they are on the page because the current tab focus is clearly highlighted in contrasting colours.
  • Colour is never used as the sole way of communicating information.
  • Downloadable PDFs can either be reflowed in Adobe Reader (View>Zoom>Reflow) and magnified to desired level without the need to scroll left and right, or where the PDFs are more complex with visuals and interactivities, an alternative accessible Word version of the document is also made available.

Navigating the website easily

  • There are different ways to navigate the site. You can
    • use the provided menu structures or
    • search for content or
    • use the breadcrumb trail to navigate back from a module.
  • The site and the resources use header tags and labelled content regions to give pages a helpful information hierarchy. Users can benefit by
    • using browser plugins like HeadingsMap to swiftly navigate a menu of headings or
    • using screen reader functionality to browse by heading level.
  • We have kept a consistent structure from page to page wherever appropriate and provide "Skip links" to allow repetitive navigable elements (e.g. the site menu) to be avoided.
  • All parts of the website, including menus and interactive resources can be navigated using a keyboard using keystrokes like Tab, Enter, Escape and the Arrow keys. The tab order is logical, and the currently focused item is highlighted for keyboard users. 
  • All page titles are relevant to page content.
  • The text provided for hyperlinks is unique and meaningful, allowing screen reader users to navigate from just a list of page links.

Media and interactivities

  • Interactive content like carousels, videos and animations can be paused and operated with either mouse or keyboard.
  • Images are marked appropriately for screen reader users.
  • All video content in learning modules has an accompanying transcript that can be accessed from the Download Transcript button or the Resources folder.
  • Video content from webinars has one or more of:
    • auto captioning (this may have some interpretation errors)
    • a downloadable transcript.
  • Interactivities have been adapted to be accessible to screen reader and keyboard only users.
  • We have designed interactivities to be accessible to screen readers but please note that
    • In module interactivities you need to complete all parts of the question before you can submit answers and get feedback.
    • The feedback pop up has tab focus on the close button (as standard) but the text is above the close button. Screen reader users should tab up to hear feedback.

Using with assistive technologies

  • Page content and downloadable resources can be accessed by text to speech tools including
    • browser based plugins like Selection Reader for Chrome,
    • clipboard readers like Orato and the ATBar,
    • commercial text to speech tools,
  • Sample page content and downloadable resources have been tested with screenreaders such as NVDA and Windows Narrator.

How accessible this website is - generic issues

Whilst we have made many improvements on the accessibility of the platform and the resources there are a few areas that may pose problems to some users. The details of these can be seen in the Non-compliance section below. This is a summary of the key areas.

  • When stylesheets are switched off, the resulting display can be difficult for visual users. We recommend using with stylesheets on.
  • The short PDF summaries of each learning module have visual headings (Aim, Objectives, Summary, Stage etc) but these are not marked as headings for assistive technologies.
  • In some modules there are "matching" interactivities. They use non-standard combo boxes with a custom control so may be less easy for screen reader users to complete.

Feedback and contact information

Please contact us by filling in the following form https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/support if you have an accessibility query including:

  • If you are experiencing issues with accessing information or using the website
  • If you find an accessibility problem not listed on this statement
  • If you have positive feedback on the accessibility considerations made.
  • If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read or audio recording (please note that we cannot, at present, supply content in Braille, and are currently in the process of reviewing how best to provide information in this format):

Call 020 3740 8280 - The ETF Office  is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. Outside of these hours you can contact us by filling in the form from the link below. https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/support

We'll consider your request and get back to you in 10 days.

If you cannot view the map on our 'contact us' page, call or email us https://www.et-foundation.co.uk/contact-us/ for directions.

Please note we also have a reporting process that can be accessed from each Enhance Digital Teaching Platform page, just scroll to the bottom and click "Support"

The support desk telephone number is 0330 22 333 63. The support desk is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. Outside of these hours you can contact us by filling in the form from the link below. https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/support

We will contact you on the next working day.

Complaints

The ETF is always keen to receive feedback to improve our services. Should you wish to make a complaint, you can do so:

  • In writing, to Education and Training Foundation, 157-197 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9SP.
  • By email, to complaints@etfoundation.co.uk
  • By phone, on 020 3740 8280.
  • The full complaints procedures can be found in the ETF Complaints Policy

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

You may want to report an accessibility problem with this website. In this case please:

  1. Visit our support page on https://enhance.etfoundation.co.uk/support
  2. Enter your contact details
  3. Select "Accessibility"
  4. Give a description of the accessibility issue experienced.

We apologise in advance for the inconvenience. We will contact you within 24 hours or on the next working day if our support is closed at the time of reporting.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

Our office is wheelchair accessible from street level, via lifts. ETF's office is based on the 3rd floor of the National Audit Office in London. Our closest station is Victoria, which has access for wheelchairs from train to street via mainline rail and underground. There is disabled parking available by prior arrangement with NAO, our landlords. ETF can be reached by phone or email, or through our website.

Technical information about this website's accessibility

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 - AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non accessible content

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

Disproportionate burden 

Webinars use auto captioning to provide live support for people with hearing difficulties. These have varying accuracy depending on the speaker and the technical terms of the topic. The estimated costs of accurate human captioning would add between 10 - 20% cost to these webinars and primarily benefit those who watch the recording afterward rather than the live webinar. We already make PowerPoints with notes available in advance on request and afterwards (as standard practice). We believe the current costs of human mediated captioning would be a disproportionate burden which would result in fewer webinars.

Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulation

Livestreamed video does not always have captions, depending on presenter tools and confidence. This is exempt from the regulations. Recorded videos have automated speech recognition and transcripts.

How we tested

Testing was carried out by

  • combining automated and manual testing applying WCAG 2.1 AA standards
  • sampling key user journeys with an external accessibility engineer using NVDA screenreader.
  • in-house testing using NVDA,
  • sampling of different page types using Windows Narrator,
  • collating results for this accessibility statement based on the Plain English accessibility basic checklist provided by Government Digital Services.
  • key page types were sampled with a suite of automated testing tools (WAVE, Site Improve, Lighthouse, axe, Accessibility Insights and Web2Access testing tool). Different tools give widely different results, so we focused on issues replicated across tools and impacts on users.

The results of the professional testing informed significant updates on both the platform and the resources. As with any large and active website we have relied on sampling key journeys and page types. If you identify barriers we missed please help by contacting us using the contact details above.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

Results from the testing process informed a range of code changes which are now incorporated into standard workflows. New content is created using these updated workflows and practices.