An accessibility audit for myjobscotland was carried out by the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) on 4th January 2022 where the website was assessed against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.1.
This audit reported a number of findings regarding accessibility barriers for assistive technologies which were encountered during accessibility testing, information has been provided detailing how to address these points.
To ensure adverts are compliant and accessible best practice on the use of images and links in your adverts is outlined below.
- The use of non descriptive images/logos - the use of logos on adverts can be ambiguous for screen reader users. In most instances no descriptive alt tag has been added to images meaning that they have a non-descriptive meaning and the purpose of each image is not exposed to users applying a screen reader.
Current example : <img src="https://emea5-static.lumessetalentlink.com/emea5-repository/NTEwQF9AL2ltYWdlcy90aHVtYnMvNzNkZTYwM2ZlOWUzY2I4ZDJjNzQzMjkxNDUwOWQzOTcuanBn.jpg?0" alt="Logo">
Solution: Include the wording from the logos as part of the alt text as shown below;
Example: <img src="https://www.myjobscotland.gov.uk/uploads/image004.png" alt="Celebrating 2 years of disability confident – working together to increase disability employment logo">
- The use of non descriptive links - if a link is used to opens any document or point to another page then an indication of what the link is should be included in the code, if there is no indication of this within the hypertext. This can be problematic for screen reader users, especially users on mobile devices as they may be on a strict data plan for example.
Current Example: To open our privacy notice <a href="http://publications.councilexample.gov.uk/dataset/973519c6-2e86-4584-aeda-61757dfe162a/resource/0b9ff7de-a729-437e-974e-a1bb96891b51/download/privacynotice-recruitment.pdf">Click here</a>
Solution: Rather than the use of 'Click Here' to open documents/web pages a description of what the document is should be included.
Example: Open the <a href="http://publications.councilexample.gov.uk/dataset/973519c6-2e86-4584-aeda-61757dfe162a/resource/0b9ff7de-a729-437e-974e-a1bb96891b51/download/privacynotice-recruitment.pdf">Privacy Notice (PDF 1MB)</a>
Under the Equality Act 2010, you are legally required to make sure your documents meet accessibility standards. All documents included in job adverts should be accessible. Documents should where possible be in HTML format wherever possible so that documents use a users’ custom browser settings.
Keep language and structure simple and clear. Break up your documents to make it more readable. Use bullet points, numbered steps and meaningful subheadings. Language should be assigned to each document.
Click for full gov.uk guidance
This should be applied to all web content so organisations may wish to review their current myjobscotland web page content and notify myjobsupport@cosla.gov.uk of any required changes.