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Accessibility statement for Commonplace

This accessibility statement applies to active Commonplace engagement websites that are receiving comments and are showing the advanced EqualWeb accessibility widget. Commonplace is a digital engagement platform that is used by local authorities, placemakers and real estate 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. In order to make this website more accessible, we incorporate EqualWeb's automatic accessibility tool which enables the following features:

Icon Function
Enable keyboard navigation
Adjust font size and spacing
Enable dark high-contrast mode
Enable light high-contrast mode
Change the colours of the page background, text and headings
Enable monochrome mode
Switch to a more readable font
Enlarge and change the colour of the cursor
Zoom the page
Highlight links on the page
Highlight headings on the page
Display image alt text in a floating box
Increase the content chosen by the cursor, showed in a tooltip
Describe words by mouse selection
Display the page content in a new tab with no styling
Type on a virtual keyboard using the mouse
Stop blinking and flashing of moving elements
Compatibility with browsers and assistive technology

Our goal is to be able to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible. We have therefore invested efforts to support popular systems with high market share, including Chrome, Firefox, edge, Opera and Safari VoiceOver on a MAC. We have also addressed JAWS and NVDA assistive technologies for Windows and MAC.

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand by actively working with local councils and property developers to highlight 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 features of the Commonplace platform are not yet fully accessible. For engagement partners who wish to make their Commonplace fully accessible we guide them to avoid using these features or to make adjustments to make them accessible.

It is the responsibility of our engagement partners to design and build their own content which is added to their Commonplace website. A list of the features which may not be accessible, depending on how our engagement partner has created their website:

  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software. We offer tools to assist our engagement partners in making PDF documents more accessible that they may opt into using.
  • Embedded videos may not contain captions. We offer guidance to our engagement partners on how to add captions into their videos.
  • Some images may not contain alternative text descriptions. It is our engagement partner's responsibility to ensure they are providing alternative text descriptions for their images.
  • Interactive images (with hover / click functionality) are not always fully accessible to screen reader software and should only be used where there is an alternative navigation option.
  • Colour contrast may not be optimised to be fully compliant. Please use the Equalweb widget tools to switch to high contrast version.
  • Headings may not reflect page hierarchy. It is our engagement partner's responsibility to ensure they are using the correct headings to reflect the hierarchy of content on the page.
  • You may not be able to skip to content on all pages. Please use the Equalweb widget skip to content feature by activating either the screen reader adjustment or keyboard navigation functions.

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 engagement partners 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 engagement partner 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 Digital 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 fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard as long as no map page or Beta question types are used.

 

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.

As questions are iterated and fully released, they will get checked to comply to accessibility requirements. For 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.

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 2024.

 

Colour contrast when custom branding is applied may not meet contrast requirements. 

We plan to review branding settings and their relationship to buttons and links in Autumn 2024 to ensure that a white brand colour, does not colour a button white making 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. 

We plan to review all page html in Autumn 2024 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 2024.

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 30 Aug 2024.