Accessibility statement for Natural Course

Accessibility statement for Natural Course

This website is run by Natural Course. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 400% 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 (opens in new page) has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

  • Videos do not have audio description
  • Most PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Our form error alert boxes are missing alert roles

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format email: info@naturalcourse.co.uk
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 14 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: info@naturalcourse.co.uk

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Natural Course is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non accessible content

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Pre-recorded video

Some pre-recorded videos may not have audio captioning or a description, so the information in them isn’t available to people who cannot see or the hear the video content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.5.

We intend to add audio descriptions to videos produced by Natural Course by December 2022.

Disproportionate burden

Forms

The error summary at the top of the forms on this site have no role of alert, so screen reader users have no way of knowing that an error has occurred unless they navigate back through the form.

When an error is submitted on the page, the page title does not update to reflect an error on the page. This may further affect screen reader users who rely on page titles to understand when an error has been committed.

This does not meet:

  • WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.1 Error Identification (Level A)
  • WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.3 Error Suggestion (Level AA)

This has been identified as a disproportionate burden as the form is supplied by a 3rd party developer; Gravity Forms.

As Gravity Forms is committed to accessibility on the web, it is hoped that the above will be rectified in future updates. See Gravity Forms webpage on accessibility – link opens in new tab to an external website.

PDFs and other documents

Most of our PDFs documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

Known PDF accessibility issues are listed below:

Most PDFs have no tags present

This may affect users of assistive technologies navigating the document who use tags to identify different sections of information, such as headings, interactive elements, and form fields in the document.

This issue may affect the navigation, reading order, and how users interact with the document for users of assistive technologies.

This doesn’t meet:

• WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A)
• WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (Level A)
• WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A)

Most PDFs that have non-text content do not have a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose.

This issue may affect screen reader users who will be unable to identify the information displayed in the images in their journey.

This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A)
Some PDFs have text that fails to meet WCAG 2.1 guidelines for contrast minimum.

Low-vision users may find difficulty in distinguishing the text against the background colour.
This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA).

Pre-recorded video

Some pre-recorded videos may not have audio captioning or a description, so the information in them isn’t available to people who cannot see or the hear the video content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.5.
We consider videos that were not produced by (3rd party video) to be a disproportionate burden.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we don’t plan to fix LOVEmyBEACH-business-pack1.pdf – opens in new tab

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

Live video streams don’t have captions. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions – live).

We don’t plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 1st December 2021. The test was carried out by Digital Accessibility Centre and the recommendations were implemented by Design By Day Ltd. A previous test took place on 19th August 2021 by Digital Accessibility Centre, the recommendations were also carried out by Design By Ltd.

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:

The sample of pages to test was based on ensuring we tested at least one page using each of the available templates that the site uses:

We tested:

You can read the full accessibility test report

DAC-Accessibility-Report-WCAG-2.1-Environment-Agency-Natural-Course-Restest-1-12-2021.pdf – opens in new tab

Please note that this was a 2 stage testing process. This website was last tested on 1st December 2021. The test was carried out by Digital Accessibility Centre and the recommendations were implemented by Design By Day Ltd. A previous test took place on 19th August 2021 by Digital Accessibility Centre, the recommendations were also carried out by Design By Ltd.

There has not been a 3rd test to test the implemented recommendations.

This statement was prepared on 3rd March 2022 It was last updated on 3rd March 2022.