Accessibility

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Accessibility is a practice, not a project.

It’s never done, and can always be improved.

Whenever we identify, or are told about, an issue with this website, or any other we operate, we try to fix it as soon as we can.

If you have any problems using this site for any reason you can email us at CustomerResearch@scotent.co.uk and we’ll look into it.

Known issues

  • Author avatar images do not have alt attributes
    • Fixed on 26 July 2024
  • Headings are not properly sequenced on the home and author pages
    • Fixed on: 25 January 2024
    • See below for details
  • Post dates link to posts from the homepage
    • Fixed on: 21 February 2024
    • See below for details

What we’ve done

Author avatar images do not have alt attributes

The plugin we use to create short author biographies after each article did not populate the alt attribute on the author’s avatar image, even if alt text was provided for the media item. This was particlarly unhelpful when the image was also a link.

So we have added a short script to add some alternate text which screen readers will announce.

  • Fixed: 26 July 2024

Headings are not properly sequenced on the home and author pages

  • When an author publishes a post, the title becomes the <h1> then other headings are marked up as <h2>, <h3> and so on.
  • But when an excerpt from the post is used on the front page, our CMS converts the <h1> to <h3>. which makes sense and maintains a proper heirarchical structure.
  • But, other headings included in the excerpt were not being ‘downsized’ in the same way.
  • Which meant we had a headings structure like:
    • h1
      • h2
        • h3
        • h3
          • h2
        • h3
          • h2
          • h2
        • h3

Which is not ideal.

  • Solution:
    • A script was deployed to remediate the headings structure
      • Headings order is now appropriate to the context
    • The script works on the home, authors, and category pages
    • Fixed on: 25 January 2024
  • Addendum: This script inadvertently and inapproriately changed our Subscribe h2 in the sidebar to an h4
    • It’s an h3 now, which fits nicely below the Recent posts h2 in the reading order
    • Fixed on: 12 July 2024

Post dates link to posts from the homepage

  • Dates in the post metadata on the excerpt from the homepage formed a link to the post
    • This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense out of (or even in) context
      • A link with the anchor text “15 January 2024” does not provide any meaningful link scent for a post entitled “Card sorting to improve information architecture “
      • There were a total of 3 links to each post from:
        • The date
        • The post title
        • The “Continue reading” link
          • This was … excessive redundancy
  • Solution:
    • We’ve amended
      • Post dates are no longer links to individual articles
    • Thanks to @mikemccaffrey@a11y.social for the heads-up
    • Fixed on: 21 February 2024