Digital Accessibility
Our website incorporates Recite Me – a web accessibility tool allowing you to customise our website in the way that works best for you. You can access the tool by clicking on “Accessibility” or “Languages” at the top left of all pages on our website.
Here’s why web accessibility matters:
- Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a disability and they can often face barriers like inaccessible websites. This prevents people from taking an active part in life, as well as accessing information about their health and wellbeing.
- Additionally, 10-15% of people have dyslexia, while 1 in 4 people in Scotland experience challenges accessing information due to poor literacy skills. Poor literacy skills affect those from our most disadvantaged communities, and we see the impact this has on people’s ability to navigate the world fairly.
- Alongside disability and literacy-based barriers to accessing information, providing information to people whose first language is not English is an important part of our work. Incorporating Recite Me into our website means everyone accessing our website can benefit from the real-time translation feature, which can translate over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices. Our website will allow us to reach out further into communities while overcoming language barriers.
Guide to using Recite Me
Here’s our quick guide to using Recite Me on our website:
Screen Reader
The screen reader helps people who are visually impaired or neuro-divergent to perceive and understand our website content.
Key features include:
- All content read aloud in a natural voice
- 35 different language options
- Speed controls and word-by-word highlighting for total customisation
- The Recite Me toolbar allows you to highlight any text and create an MP3 file, which downloads automatically to your computer. Audio is created in a natural-sounding conversational style.
Styling
Our website is customisable to a way that works for you. Recite Me supports people who are dyslexic, visually impaired or have a learning disability to change the way our website looks, so you can experience it the way it is intended.
Key features include:
- Text size and colour
- Website background colour
- Text font type, including Open-Dyslexic
- Text only option, where all styling is stipped away. This leaves text only for your viewing, much like a document
Reading
Reading content online can be a challenge for some people. To simplify and support you to read our content, Recite Me provides four tools.
Tools include:
- Ruler – to read line by line with no distractions of what is below
- Reading mask – to mask away 90% of our website, leaving only the information you want to concentrate on
- Magnifier – to zoom in to sections of the text making reading more clearly easier
- Margins – when in text only mode, you can use the margin feature to position content in the best place for you
Translation
1 in 10 people don’t speak English as their first language in the UK. By using Recite Me, you can quickly and easily translate all our website content into over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices. The translation function changes everything you see on our website.
British Sign Language
Users of British Sign Language can get free access to translation services here.
