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Accessibility statement for Commonplace

This accessibility statement applies to inactive Commonplace engagement websites that are not receiving visitors, either because the website has not launched yet or the engagement phase has finished. All Commonplace websites that are active and are receiving visitors are fully compliant, read the accessibility statement for active Commonplaces. If you think, the Commonplace that you are viewing should be classed as active, please contact accessibility@commonplace.is.

Commonplace is a digital engagement platform that is used by many local authorities and private property developers to engage with the public in a transparent way. Each Commonplace contains custom content that is uploaded by the organisations facilitating the engagement.

Members of the public can learn and feedback about changes in their neighbourhoods or the services you use. We want as many people as possible to be able to use these websites. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand by actively working with local councils and property developers highlighting language which may be a little difficult 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 the Commonplace platform are not yet fully accessible, the website that you are viewing may not be using these.

Content added by engagement partners:

  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Embedded videos may not contain captions
  • Some images may not contain alternative text descriptions
  • Interactive images (with hover / click functionality) are not always fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Colour contrast may not be optimised to be fully compliant - please use the userWay widget tools to switch to high contrast version
  • HTML of the page may contain not semantic heading order
  • May not be able to skip to content on all pages

Commonplace functionality:

  • Some new survey question types that are still in Beta may not yet be fully accessible: map as a question, comment on image, budgeting question, skip logic. Even if selected by engagement partners for inclusion in the website, none of these are required questions and we recommend to customers to avoid these questions if they require full compliance.
  • Community heatmap pages are not fully accessible. In order to maintain full compliance in this instance, we recommend to engagement partners to add a parallel 'Map alternative' tile where they can ask respondents to provide a written location / postcode / address to describe the place instead of dropping a pin. 
  • Navigational maps are not fully accessible. In order to maintain full compliance in this instance, we recommend to engagement partners to add the hover panels as clickable tiles or hyperlinks above or below the map so that the same journey can be accessed by people who are unable to access the navigational map. 

 

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille: email accessibility@commonplace.is

We’ll consider your request, forward it to the relevant organisation that facilitates the engagement and get back to you in 7 days.

 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

accessibility@commonplace.is with a link where you are experiencing the issue and a description of what the problem is.

 

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

Commonplace 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

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

 

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Newer question types that are being trialed may not be fully accessible using a keyboard, for example a map pin cannot be added using the keyboard arrows or by typing a location. This fails WCAG2.1 Success criterion 2.1.3 Keyboard (No exceptions).

As questions are iterated and fully released, they will get checked to comply to accessibility requirements. Fo example for map based questions, we recommend to engagement partners to add a parallel 'Map alternative' tile where they can ask respondents to provide a written location / postcode / address to describe the place instead of dropping a pin. 

 

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to enforce any uploaded images to contain alternative text when we next revisit edit mode that organisations use to add and upload content onto their Commonplace websites. This is planned for Autumn 2023.

 

Colour contrast when custom branding is applied may not meet contrast requirements. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum).

We plan to review branding settings and their relationship to buttons and links in Autumn 2023 to ensure that a white brand colour, does not colour a button white and this difficult to identify as a button.

HTML elements such as heading order may not be semantically correct which means that not all page content is read out in a sensible order. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2 Meaningful sequence.

We plan to review all page html in Autumn 2023 and update heading order accordingly.

 

There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.


Disproportionate burden

 

3rd party question types

Some of our interactive questions may be difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.

Some of our forms if they use skip logic are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website. We have fed back these limitations to the company that provide these question types. If these features are getting more widely adopted we will be planning on bringing these in to the core Commonplace platform where we will have full control over its accessibility. This will be re-assessed Autumn 2023.

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

 

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs are uploaded by the organisations facilitating the engagement. For example, there may be PDFs outlining plans or previous strategies. Commonplaces advises these organisations to include all strictly relevant information on the accessible HTML pages.

Live video

If you are attending a webinar or online town hall meeting, we do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 18th October 2022. It was last reviewed on 1st May 2023.

This website was last tested on 14th October 2022. The test was carried out internally by Commonplace. 

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:

Two different types of Commonplace projects that contained a range of content, all questions types and multi-media content. The sites were tested with keyboard navigation on Safari and Chrome browsers, Wave and Lighthouse extension and using the VoiceOver built-in ios screen reader.