This accessibility statement applies to all of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's websites.

By Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh websites we mean: 

• rbge.org.uk
• All of the microsites and online resources operated by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

We are committed to making our websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. We want as many people as possible to be able to use our websites and work is continuing to fulfil this aim.

In the meantime, on the rbge.org.uk website, you should be able to:

•  zoom in up to 300% 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 have also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

 

How accessible is this website?

We know that some parts of the website are not fully accessible, for example:

• Some parts of the website, including status messages, online forms, headers, buttons and links may not be fully compatible with assistive technologies.
• Colour contrast may not be high enough and some text spacing may not match minimum requirements.
• Some text and images may spill off the screen at some screen resolutions.
• Keyboard navigation and its focus indicator do not work on every part of every website.
• Our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard and assistive technologies.
• Most older PDF documents (pre- 2018) are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
• Some elements may not always appear in the most logical order if you are using assistive technologies to navigate the page.
• Some videos, created before September 2020, do not have closed captions, transcripts or audio descriptions.
• Some third-party websites to which we navigate are not fully accessible.

 

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF or large print we will do our best to support you.

email:  webmaster@rbge.org.uk

call:  0131 552 7171

We will confirm receipt of your request and get back to you in seven days.  Please add ‘accessibility’ into your subject header.

 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.  If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements please email webmaster@rbge.org.uk

 

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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

 

Technical Information about this website’s accessibility

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

 

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Non-text Content

Some images, non-text content and form controls do not have alternative text or descriptive enough labels to explain their content. This means that the information displayed by them is not available to people using a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1.

Meaningful Sequence

When viewing the homepage with CSS disabled, the Google Translate component is causing the ordering of the page content to appear incorrect. This may confuse or disorient users when assistive technology reads the content in the wrong order. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2.

Identify Input Purpose

All form fields lack the 'autocomplete' attribute. This makes it harder for the user, especially for people with cognitive disabilities, to fill out forms. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.5.

Resize Text

Some parts of the content may disappear or change context when zooming in up to 200%.  This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4.

Reflow

At certain resolutions, content may not reflow and there may be a loss of information or functionality which requires scrolling in two dimensions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10.

Text Spacing

We cannot guarantee that all the website text meets the minimum text spacing. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12.

Contrast

The colour contrast of some text and graphical objects on the website may not be high enough to display content clearly. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast minimum) and 1.4.11 (Non-text contrast: graphical objects).

Keyboard

When using keyboard navigation, users may not be able to tab to all of the elements within the page or tab forward when navigating to a new page. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1.

Focus Order

When tabbing the page in some places the tab order may not be logical, which may result in some users finding it difficult to understand or operate the web page. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3.

Focus Visible

In some places, a visible tab focus indicator is not present to highlight the element in focus for keyboard operable user interface components. As a result, if you use a keyboard to navigate, you may be unable to easily navigate the website. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7.

Error Suggestion

Within forms on the site, suggestions for input errors are not provided.  This means that some users may find it difficult to understand how to correct errors. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.3.

Labels or Instructions

Within forms, some elements may be missing labels or instructions. This means that some users may experience confusion over what input data is expected.  This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2.

Name, Role, Value

When navigating the website with JAWS enabled or via a keyboard in conjunction with macOS VoiceOver, some components across the page are announced twice which may result in screen readers stuttering and may disorientate users of assistive technologies. Also, when navigating forms with Dragon Naturally Speaking, the user is unable to navigate and select options via voice command. These fail WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2.

Status Messages

In the event of a status message being published on the website, this additional content may not be announced by assistive technologies without receiving focus. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.3.

 

Disproportionate Burden

We are committed to improving the criteria above and we are working hard to achieve that, but it will take some time due to the cost, conditions of contracts and complexity of the task. The RBGE website utilises a number of third-party systems, these include (but are not limited to) all online forms and event listings.  Many of the above listed issues relate to content from third parties and have the potential of being resolved by upcoming digital consolidation projects within the next one to two years. A number of improvements to fix content that is non-compliant are also under development and will be released in Autumn 2023.

We have assessed the cost of fixing all other accessibility issues against the planned digital projects and believe doing so would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. For any issues not resolved during upcoming projects, we plan to fix during redevelopment of the website in the future. 

Microsites and online resources

We have a large number of microsites and online resources that are non-compliant with many of the WCAG 2.1 AAs success criterion. We are currently in the process of having these sites audited independently by Zoonou to allow us to identify the work that needs to be carried out to make them accessible.

 

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations 

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services.

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

Pre-recorded video

Videos created before 23 September 2020 might not have closed captions, alternative text, audio descriptions or transcripts that describe the events and content of the video in text format. We do not plan to add these alternatives because pre-recorded video from before 23 September 2020 is exempt.

Third party software, tools and content

Some types of content and technology used on the website are provided by third parties (like Google Translate, Google Maps and YouTube). We have not paid for, developed, nor controlled these services at any time; therefore, we are not liable for their accessibility compliance.

Heritage collections

The heritage collections composed of digitised mediums delivered by the website fall into the accessibility regulation’s description of a heritage collection. Therefore, the Herbarium, Library and Archives collections are exempt.

 

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We are committed to inclusivity at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.  To address the issues outlined above, improvements are currently in development for rbge.org.uk which will be released in Autumn 2023.

As previously noted, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh runs many websites, including a large number of microsites that were developed at different times using different technologies. We are committed to providing websites that are accessible to all and we are working hard to achieve that, but the scale and complexity of the task provides a number of challenges. 

We are also:

• Ensuring that all new components are built to WCAG 2.1 AA standards at a minimum.
• Continuing our commitment to user testing and listening to our digital users.
• Raising general accessibility awareness across the organisation.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This website was last tested on 1 March 2021. The test was carried out independently by Zoonou.

We tested:

• our website platform rbge.org.uk with a full automated audit of every page
• a sample of pages and templates manually. In selecting these pages, we considered the different audiences using the website and their most frequent user journeys starting from the home page.
• Testing the website journeys of users with hearing-loss, dyslexia and partially-sighted and blind speech users.

If you would like to view the full accessibility test report, please email webmaster@rbge.org.uk

This statement was last updated on 10 May 2022.