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The best British newspaper archive on the web

  1. Accessibility

Accessibility statement for UKPressOnline

This accessibility statement applies to ukpressonline.co.uk and all the content hosted within this domain.

This website is run by Digitorial Ltd. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website easily. We have therefore aimed to make the website as user-friendly for all as possible. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Choose between light or dark mode within the website itself
  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • Zoom in to a level of your choosing without the text spilling off the screen and with the screen reformatting to support this
  • Use the website on a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile device with appropriate layouts for screen size
  • Navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • Keyboard shortcuts allow you to jump to the main content
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader with different types of text like headings marked appropriately (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
  • Choose between viewing a newspaper image in the site with zoom, flip, rotate and fullscreen options or downloading a PDF file

We've also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. AbilityNet 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 are not fully accessible:

  • The newspaper images themselves can be difficult for assistive technology such as screen reading software. This is harder when they are viewed within the webpage, and it may be easier to download the PDF which contains a copy of all the text on the screen for each image. Please be aware that because the text generation is done via software and not manually, there are sometimes errors or missing words that screen reading software may have difficulties with, however it is still easier this way than when viewed within the webpage.

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, contact info@digitorial.co.uk to speak with a member of the team via email. We would be interested to hear about any improvements you think would benefit the site from an accessibility perspective.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please email us on info@digitorial.co.uk. We'll consider your request and get back to you within 5 working days. We will try our best to provide any assistance possible but unfortunately it may not be possible to fulfil all requests.

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

Digitorial Ltd is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard. It is currently partially compliant.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliance's and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some non-text content such as entry fields or images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We are continuing to update non text-content with text alternatives as we review the site. When we publish new content we'll make sure our use of non-text content meets accessibility standards.

While we are compliant currently with the programmatically determination of structure (i.e. headings are marked in the code so screen readers can recognise them), the website text content can be updated by anyone with administrative access without technical ability so there is a chance that this could change. This relates to WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).

We will work to ensure that if any changes are made, they are done in compliance with this standard and will train any administrative staff to understand this criterion.

At present, tooltips are not dismissible without moving the mouse cursor and do not persist when mouse is moved over them. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.14 (content on hover or focus).

Resolution of this remains on our list of planned future developments.

Contrast is currently compliant across the site to the minimum standards but some regions are not compliant with the enhanced standards of 7:1. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.6 (contrast - enhanced).

We will endeavour to ensure any new content added to the site is compliant with the enhanced contrast standards and will update any existing content as we review the site.

Options are available for light or dark mode and zoom will allow resizing of text to suit user preference. We do not currently have a feature that allows users to select their own background and foreground colours. Any text written by UKPressonline is aligned to the left, right or centred and never aligned to both sides. On some newspaper pages there may be text that is aligned to both sides but this is outside our control. It is not possible for a user to change the spacing between lines in a text block currently. This means we are only partially compliant with WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.8 (visual presentation).

Allowing users to select background and foreground colours and edit line spacing to their preference is a feature on our list for future development.

Tooltips are not dismissible without moving the mouse cursor and do not persist when mouse is moved over them. Tooltips should also appear when selected by keyboard and persist until dismissed but currently do not. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.13 (content on hover or focus).

Resolution of this issue is a feature on our list for future development.

There is currently a time out after around 20 minutes when doing searches. If a user is in search results or within a newspaper page and doesn't interact with the site in any manner for around 20 minutes they will time out and revert to the search page. There is currently no option to disable this timer or a warning to let you know this will happen. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.2.1 (timing adjustable) & 2.2.6 (timeouts). When this time out occurs, whatever search term you used to perform that search will be lost, making the site only partially compliant with WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.2.5 (re-authenticating).

We are planning to introduce a warning notification that lets you know when you are close to the timeout limit and allows you to remain on the page you are viewing. This will be introduced later in 2024.

There is currently a scrolling banner image on the homepage of the website featuring a selection of different newspaper front pages. This image is decorative and in no way integral to use of the site, however there is currently no ability to stop it from scrolling. This type of image isn't used elsewhere on the site. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.2.2 (pause, stop, hide).

A button to pause the scrolling of this image will be added later in 2024.

There is currently only one way to access some web pages on the site and no site map. This is because the content on the site changes depending on your subscription option. This fails success criterion 2.4.5 (multiple ways).

We will introduce a site map that fulfils this criteria later in 2024.

All of the targets for pointer inputs are at minimum 24 by 24 CSS pixels which complies with the minimum standard however they are not all 44 by 44 CSS pixels. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.5.5.

That being said due to the zoom functionality and the way the page features restructure when zoom is used, it is very easy to make any pointer input this size. Because of this, we have no immediate plans to change this.

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

Heritage Collections

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or images of heritage collections such as the historical images of newspapers on the site. While we will do our best to ensure the quality and contrast of these images makes them as clear as possible and to ensure the OCR text within these images is as accurate as possible (for screen readers), we will not be able to ensure full compliance with any of these heritage newspaper images. We are also unable to account for the use of terms and phrases within these papers that may be unusual in today's culture as they were chosen for the era they were written in. The reading age of these newspapers also varies due to the journalistic style and they will always be presented as they were published. This means they will not be translated to other languages.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We are constantly developing the website and improving the accessibility is a major goal for us. While we do not have a formalised accessibility roadmap at present (due to the very small nature of the development team), at least one update a month to the site is rolled out. Within these updates, any accessibility issues that we are aware of and are able to fix will be fixed. If there is a specific issue you would like prioritised, please contact us using the contact information above.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23rd August 2024. It was last reviewed on 23rd August 2024.

This website was last tested throughout April and August 2024 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

The audit was carried out in house by Digitorial Ltd. Several prominent pages including the home page, search page and the FAQ were reviewed as part of this audit. The audit did not encompass every page of the website. Because of this, it is possible that there are WCAG criteria that the website is not compliant with that have not been specified above. This would only be the case if the pages audited were all compliant while another page that wasn't audited was not.

With the size of the team and the revenue of the company as it currently stands, it was not viable for a full audit of the website or for an external audit to be completed. As more of the items listed above, highlighted by our internal audit, are resolved and if the company structure or revenue changes to allow it; a company goal is to complete an external accessibility audit when possible.