Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust #4 for accessibility online

Silktide, a company that compares millions of websites, has analysed NHS trust and CCG websites for usability, including content, accessibility, marketing, mobile, social, speed, and legal compliance.

We are proud to say that we scored at #4, out of 211 NHS Trusts nationwide, with a score of 89 on Silktide.

Website accessibility is the practice of making a website usable by everyone, regardless of ability or disability.

Its primary aim is inclusion, no matter what a user’s circumstance, and aims to ensure support for a variety of users, such as those with low vision who may have trouble reading low-contrast text on a web page or a user on a mobile device in bright sunlight. The company measures the websites against the international standard for web accessibility, WCAG 2.1.

In order for a website to be considered accessible, it is essential that several different areas of web development and interaction work together correctly. This includes:

• content - the information in a web page or web application, including:
• natural information such as text, images, and sounds
• website code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.
• web browsers, media players, and other “user agents”
• assistive technology, in some cases - screen readers, alternative keyboards, switches, scanning software, etc. [Browse Aloud in our case]
• users’ knowledge, experiences, and in some cases, adaptive strategies using the web
• developers - designers, coders, authors, etc., including developers with disabilities and users who contribute content
• authoring tools - software that creates websites
• evaluation tools - web accessibility evaluation tools, HTML validators, CSS validators, etc.

This is a fantastic achievement for the organisation and one which we're extremely proud of, as we understand how much work has gone into our website in recent years and this recognition is well deserved by the teams involved.

You can read the study in full, here: https://htn.co.uk/2021/03/15/nhs-trust-and-ccg-websites-compared-for-accessibility/