Accessibility statement

During 2021, we embedded accessibility and usability into the heart of our discovery, design, and development activities. As we made routine changes to each part of our technology, we ensured we also made improvements to their accessibility and usability. We particularly focussed on accessibility aspects that could help all our existing users. On the signed-in website and mobile apps, this included:

• a change in colour palette on the signed-in website and mobile apps to something more accessible
• increased touch-target areas
• better support for screen-readers through alt-text and aria tagging
• better support for keyboard-only users with improvements in focus indicators, tab orders, etc
• improved usability at higher zoom levels and in landscape orientation
• improved design of video components on our signed-in website
• changes to the language used to improve usability.

However, we have plans for further improvements too.

We are planning significant changes to the public website and aim to launch our new website in Autumn 2022. This will include a focus on improving the accessibility of the site.

We are also actively working on significant changes to the signed-in website for registered users and the mobile applications. When we publish new content we’ll make sure that we meet accessibility standards.
We aim to be WCAG 2.1 AA compliant by the end of 2022.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of the text
• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• some of our pages are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
• you cannot skip to sections of each page when using a screen reader
• many of our videos do not have integral captions or a transcript.

We know some parts of the signed-in website are not fully accessible. For example:

• some pages have areas of poor colour contrast
• some buttons do not have a text alternative
• our Diary feature is difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
• some pages do not have proper HTML headers so screen reader software may not represent the visual page structure
• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.

We know some parts of the applications are not fully accessible. For example:

• some screen elements do not have a text alternative or a text label
• some pages have reduced colour contrast where the colour of an image element or text element has insufficient contrast with its background
• a few screen elements have a small 'touch target'.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, or braille, please call us on 01392 247 909 or email info@braininhand.co.uk.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 7 working days to provide the information or to let you know if we can’t.

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact info@braininhand.co.uk.

If you’re not happy with how we respond to your accessibility complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). 

Brain in Hand Ltd is committed to making its websites and mobile applications accessible.

We are working towards meeting the WCAG 2.1 AA standard and have conducted tests of a sample of pages on each website and application.

The Brain in Hand public website, the Brain in Hand signed-in website for registered users and the Brain in Hand mobile applications are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1  AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Brain in Hand have conducted a short internal audit and we are aware of the following non-compliances.
We expect to conduct further tests of each part of Brain in Hand as part of the improvements we plan for 2022.

The Brain in Hand public website

1. Some buttons do not have a text alternative, i.e. are in need of an alt or aria-label attribute. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text content).
2. Some pages do not have proper html headings. Clear and descriptive headings help all users find information more easily and better support screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels).
3. Some pages have poor colour contrast where the colour of an element or text has insufficient contrast with its background. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast - (Minimum)).
4. On some pages, not all content is within a landmark region defined using HTML role attributes. This means the pages are harder for screen reader users to navigate.
5. Not all video content has captions or a transcript. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2 (Captions (Prerecorded) and 1.2.5 (Audio Description (Prerecorded)).
6. Not all pages have a HTML language element. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.2 (Language of Parts).
7. Some pages have nested interactive controls which are not announced by screen readers. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
8. Some documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Non-HTML documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format.

The Brain in Hand signed-in website for registered users

1. Some buttons do not have a text alternative, i.e. are in need of an alt or aria-label attribute. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text content).
2. Some pages do not have proper html headings. Clear and descriptive headings help all users find information more easily and better support screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels).
3. Some pages have poor colour contrast where the colour of an element or text has insufficient contrast with its background. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast - (Minimum)).
4. On some pages, not all content is within a landmark region defined using HTML role attributes. This means the pages are harder for screen reader users to navigate.
5. Some screens are difficult to navigate for keyboard-only users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1(Keyboard).
6. Some documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Non-HTML documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format.

The Brain in Hand mobile applications for registered users

1. Some screen elements do not have a text alternative or a text label.
2. Some pages have reduced colour contrast where the colour of an image element or text element has insufficient contrast with its background.
3. A few screen elements have a small 'touch target'.

We are actively developing the Brain in Hand mobile applications and our plans for 2022 include a focus on further improving accessibility.

Some user referral and feedback forms linked from the public website are based on WordPress. These will not be updated but we aim to replace these with custom webforms by the end of 2022.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services. We will be reducing the amount of necessary information delivered through PDF in 2022.

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

Some PDFs that we link to are not owned or produced by Brain in Hand.

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

This statement was prepared on 15 March 2022. It will be reviewed in November 2022.

This statement is based on our sample tests.

We tested the Brain in Hand websites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level AA and level WCAG 2.1 AA. We selected the sample of pages to test based on the importance of the information on the page and to test against a range of different page types and functions.

The public website was last tested by Brain in Hand Ltd. in May-June 2021.

This included a sample of:

• Home page
• Referral forms
• Information pages - For Me and Health & Social Care
• Video content
• Contact Us page

The registered users' website was last tested by Brain in Hand Ltd. in February 2022.

This included a sample of:

• Sign-in screens
• Existing user Home Screen
• Diary
• Unplanned
• Activities
• Timeline
• Settings
• Account details
• Brain in Hand introduction screens

The mobile applications were last tested by Brain in Hand Ltd. in January-February 2022.

This included a sample of:

• Sign-in screens
• Diary and Event screens
• Unplanned
• Traffic Light interactions
• Timeline
• Settings

We actively consider accessibility as part of our discovery, design, and development activities, and will continue to make further improvements as we update each part of Brain in Hand during 2022. We will continue to test new features for accessibility during the active development phases. We will also conduct fuller accessibility tests of each existing aspect as we continue work on our technology elements.