Quickly exit this site by pressing the Escape key Leave this site
We use some essential cookies to make our website work. We’d like to set additional cookies so we can remember your preferences and understand how you use our site.
You can manage your preferences and cookie settings at any time by clicking on “Customise Cookies” below. For more information on how we use cookies, please see our Cookies notice.
Your cookie preferences have been saved. You can update your cookie settings at any time on the cookies page.
Your cookie preferences have been saved. You can update your cookie settings at any time on the cookies page.
Sorry, there was a technical problem. Please try again.
Thanks for trying the 'beta' version of our new website. It's a work in progress, we'll be adding new services over the next few weeks, so please take a look and tell us what you think.
We are committed to making this website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Key technical accessibility standards we use include:
We test for accessibility compliance and usability using a mixture of approaches:
Expert evaluation and user testing is also done as part of accessibility auditing activities.
We use automated accessibility tools such as Axe-core and Wave. Developers and testers are responsible for testing with automated accessibility tools locally and on test environments. This makes sure:
Axe-core is integrated into the test automation process and automated accessibility tests are run during each development sprint by the test automation lead.
Siteimprove is used to monitor each individual force website. As well as code quality, search engine optimisation and performance, it monitors accessibility status.
Automated testing on its own is not sufficient to claim WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. It is always used in conjunction with manual testing techniques.
Manual testing is needed in conjunction with automated techniques in order to claim WCAG 2.1 AA compliance.
Expert review by a dedicated accessibility consultant is done as part of compliance auditing and sprint review for any new templates or functionality. This includes:
In addition to this, non-specialist manual accessibility testing is also done by most team members as part of the standard quality assurance stage before deployment.
The following resources provide checklists that can be used to test for accessibility issues:
Use in browser tools and extensions to help test for accessibility, for example:
As well as conforming to technical accessibility standards and automated testing this site web content is tested with assistive technology and display/device adaptations. The site components will always be tested with:
As a minimum the Government Digital Service recommendations for testing with assistive technologies are followed. Current common assistive technologies and display adaptations include:
More Information on display adjustments can be found on the AbilityNet - My Computer My Way website.