Making a Positive Difference in Digital Accessibility
Our website incorporates Recite Me - a web accessibility tool allowing you to customise our website in the way that works best for you.
HERE'S WHY WEB ACCESSIBILITY MATTERS FOR OUR WORK:
- Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a disability, and they can often face barriers like inaccessible websites. This prevents people from taking an active part in life and accessing information about their health and well-being.
- Additionally, 10-15% of people have dyslexia, while 1 in 4 people in Scotland experience challenges accessing information due to poor literacy skills. Poor literacy skills affect those from Scotland's most disadvantaged communities. We see the impact this has on people's ability to navigate the world fairly while taking care of their health through our frontline services. That's why we're making a positive difference by creating an accessible HIV, hepatitis C and sexual health digital resource.
- Alongside disability and literacy-based barriers to accessing information, providing information to people whose first language is not English is an important part of smashing HIV, hepatitis C, and sexual health-related stigma. Incorporating Recite Me into our website means everyone accessing our website can benefit from the real-time translation feature, translating over 100 languages, including 35 texts to speech voices. With much of our work supporting African communities in Scotland, our new website will allow us to further into communities while overcoming language barriers.
For more information on Recite Me, check out their website here.
Here's our quick guide to using Recite Me on our website:
SCREEN READER
Our screen reader helps people who are visually impaired or neuro-divergent to perceive and understand our website content.
Key features include:
- All content read aloud in a natural voice
- 35 different language options
- Speed controls and word-by-word highlighting for total customisation
- The Recite Me toolbar allows you to highlight any text and create an MP3 file that automatically downloads your computer. Audio is created in a natural-sounding conversational style.
The screen reader is easy to use, as shown in our example image.
STYLING
Our website is customisable in a way that works for you. Recite Me supports dyslexic, visually impaired people or has a learning disability to change the way our website looks, so you can experience it the way it is intended.
Key features include:
- Text size and colour
- Website background colour
- Text font type, including Open-Dyslexic
- Text only option, where all styling is stipped away. This leaves text only for your viewing, much like a document.
The styling function has lots of different options, as shown in our example image.
READING
Reading content online can be a challenge for some people. To simplify and support you to read our content, Recite Me provides four tools.
Tools include:
- Ruler - to read line by line with no distractions of what is below
- Reading mask - to mask away 90% of our website, leaving only the information you want to concentrate on
- Magnifier - to zoom in to sections of the text, making reading more clearly easier
- Margins - when in text-only mode, you can use the margin feature to position content in the best place for you
The reading function makes small writing easy to read, as shown in our example image.
TRANSLATION
1 in 10 people doesn't speak English as their first language in the UK.
Using Recite Me, you can quickly and easily translate all our website content into over 100 languages, including 35 texts to speech voices.
The translation function changes everything you see on our website, as shown in our example image.
Contact
Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to support@get-optimal.com.
