Date: 16/11/2020
Date of next review: May 2021
RNIB's shop 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.
Accessibility issues
We have identified several accessibility issues on the shop and hope to have these issues addressed in the near future. These include the following:
Checkout page layout
The checkout page has a form layout that results in two columns and some form fields are positioned side by side. To simplify the layout to a single column and have all the form fields contained on a single row, increase the in-browser magnification to 300%.
Checkout page auto completion
Auto complete features on the checkout page will fill in the form fields. However, the Billing and Delivery section may need further changes as the House Number form field will include the street number and name when auto completion is used.
If you are having issues, please try the following:
- Amend the House Number form field so only the house number remains.
- Once amended, use the Lookup button and move to the Select Address dropdown to select your address.
- These steps will need to be repeated for the delivery section if your order is not being delivered to the same billing address.
Lists
Not all lists will inform screen reader users of the number of items contained within expandable/collapsible section.
Buttons
There are buttons marked up as links, which perform the role of expand and collapse buttons. Some of these buttons make up the subcategories of the main navigation menu and mobile/tablet icon navigation menu. If you encounter any links that once actioned do not appear to do anything, then there is likely to be new content located below the element.
Error validation
Error validation is currently not implemented in a standard way. When entering information, only some form fields have inline error validation. Some but not all error validation triggers will correctly place the virtual cursor into the affected form field when attempting to submit data.
If you find that making a payment is confusing, please check the following:
- If you are making a guest checkout payment and on submission discover the virtual focus is placed within a read-only form field for address, navigate towards ‘Address finder’ and ensure this is filled out correctly. Please note this must be done for both Billing address and Delivery address (if the ‘Deliver to same address’ checkbox is not selected).
- If choosing a separate delivery address, ensure all required fields are adequately filled in this section as currently the inline error validation does not appear correctly for all form fields on the page.
- When actioning the ‘add to basket’ button, if the screen reader alerts you to a ‘dialogue message’ then it is likely that the item is not in stock. To confirm this, navigate to the quantity widget and look for the next item after the ‘Increase quantity button’.
Page refresh
- Some devices (such as mobiles) and screen readers may not read out anything on page refresh, if this is the case, swipe to discover where the virtual focus is in the page and then attempt to correct any outstanding issues.
Registered accounts
- For registered accounts, amending existing details will be difficult as the labels are not associated with the form fields.
Web accessibility conformance statement
RNIB is committed to testing and delivering all web content on the RNIB shop website to WCAG 2.1, level A and AA compliance. We aim to achieve this by testing our web pages and content against the WCAG 2.1 checkpoints and make changes to the website 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 RNIB shop website, especially where content and delivery is reliant on third party providers.
Compliance standards (what we test against)
We try our best to ensure we test with a wide 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 this enables more security and provides improved accessibility features and accessibility support for users.
Technology we use for testing
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.
- Windows High contrast mode (Edge and Firefox).
- In browser magnification up to 400%.
- Keyboard navigation only.
Third party functionality and services
In some places on the RNIB shop website, we depend on third parties to deliver functionality and services that we cannot perform ourselves. Wherever possible we work with third parties to ensure that the service they provide also achieves conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
We cannot guarantee that all our third party applications and services will always remain accessible and usable due to various updates made by third party suppliers.
If you discover any of our third party services are not usable, please email [email protected].
Legacy support
While we try to ensure support for older browsers, it is not always possible or feasible to continue this support.
We urge those on legacy systems to upgrade, as this will provide the most optimised and secure browsing experience.
Improvements
We are committed to the continual improvement of the accessibility of our website. We achieve this by doing the following:
- Performing regular accessibility audits.
- Speaking with our customers and incorporating their feedback to improve our services.
- Keeping up with the latest best practices and evolving standards.
Reporting a web accessibility issue
If you experience any accessibility issues while using our website, please let us know by emailing [email protected].