Accessibility Statement for Kingston Heritage Service

This accessibility statement applies to Kingston Heritage Service.

 

How accessible this website is

This website was developed in 2020 to a "Level AA” standard in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 defined by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) web accessibility initiative.

We are ensuring that all new information on the website will achieve “Level AA” conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. And will strive towards AAA compliance where possible, including accessibility when we procure 3rd-party systems or upgrades to existing systems.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
● zoom in up to 400% 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

We have listed areas of the site that we know are not fully accessible:

● some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
● some live video streams do not have captions

 

Viewing options

The BBC’s site My web my way provides useful advice on using the accessibility settings in browsers and operating systems. Microsoft provides advice for those using Microsoft browsers: Microsoft advice. Apple provides advice for those using Apple products and Mac browsers: Apple advice.

Difficulty using a mouse 

You can navigate through the site using your keyboard if you prefer this to using a mouse. The ‘tab’ key will move your cursor to each of the navigation options or links on the screen. Pressing 'Enter’ will select the link. The 'page up' and 'page down' keys on your keyboard will also move the page up or down.

Screen readers

The website is designed so that people with sight difficulties may use screen readers to access the content and navigate the page. However, some areas, such as documents in Portable Document Format (PDFs) may not be suitable for screen readers. We are working towards more accessible PDFs but in the meantime, if you have any issues with a document, please use talking browser option (which can read pdf documents from our site) or contact us and we will see if it is possible to provide it in a suitable format. As many of our documents are hisotric documents this may not always be possible.

Languages 

Our website uses Google translate to offer information in other languages.

Images, audio and video

We aim to provide a text description for all images. The 'alt' key for images provides a description of each static image.

Links

We aim to make all links descriptive; it should be clear where the link will take you. The ‘tab’ key on your keyboard (and on your mouse) will move your cursor consecutively from link to link.

PDF files

We provide some extra information on our website in Portable Document Format (PDF). You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read these files, it can be downloaded free of charge from the Adobe website. Adobe also provide tools to convert PDF documents into plain text or plain HTML documents to help provide accessible information to people with sight difficulties:

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF or large print please contact us using the details below. Please be aware that due to the age and nature of materials held be Kingston Heritage Service this may not always be available.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days. If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us at local.history@kingston.gov.uk or kingston.museum@kingston.gov.uk for directions. Please be aware that our inboxes are monitored in line with our opening times. 

 

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 us:

 

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)

 

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

You can find our contact information on our Visit page.

Kingston Museum

  • Bell at front entrance for wheelchair users
  • Level access into the building
  • Four steps to Muybridge Gallery - level access through Kingston Library by prior arrangement
  • First floor accessible by lift
  • Wheelchair accessible toilet on the ground floor
  • Large font captions to permanent displays
  • During Kingfisher's closure, we are unable to offer onsite parking. Please contact us at kingston.museum@kingston.gov.uk or at 020 8547 6440 for information about alternative parking.

Kingston History Centre

  • Level Access into the building
  • Wheelchair accessible toilet 
  • Four steps to the search room
  • Platform lift available
  • Please contact us at local.history@kingston.gov.uk or at 020 8547 6738 for information about parking.

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Kingston Heritage Service is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This site was developed by Jadu in 2020 and all source coding has been designed in accordance with the "Level AA” standard as part of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 defined by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) web accessibility initiative.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1, 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

  • Embedded videos do not have an audio-only version of the content. From 23 September 2020 all our new videos will have an audio only version.
  • Some of our interactive maps are difficult to navigate using a keyboard, however the addresses are also provided in an accessible text format on the same page.

 

Disproportionate burden

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

 

PDFs and other documents

Some of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. 

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

Some live video streams may not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions – live).

Wherever possible we will make captions available on live streams but this is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Maps

Maps are excluded from the the accessibility directive but we do make every effort to make our map content as accessible as possible but there might be some information that is inaccessible.

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are ensuring that all new content is created in line with the current accessibility guidelines and working on creating accessible versions of older documents where possible and we aim to further enhance this site through feedback from real people.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 30/07/2020. It was last reviewed on 30/07/2020.