Accessibility Statement for the Historic England Learning Platform

How accessible this website is

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

• Some elements have vague or misleading alt text.
• Some elements on the site are difficult to reach using the keyboard, or have focus indicators which are hard to see.
• Some heading levels have been skipped.
• Some user controls are not interpreted by screen readers as expanded or collapsed on user input.
• Some elements present in a different order on mobile than on desktop.
• Some pages lack titles.
• Status messages to let you know when changes have been made are sometimes not read by the screen reader or are not easily visible on the page. 
• The focus order on some pages does not follow the logical order of content. 

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• email [email protected]
• call 0370 333 0607
• Between: 09:00 - 17:00 Monday to Friday

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five working days.

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 customer services on [email protected], who will pass your request on to the appropriate team.

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

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliance and exemptions listed below.

Non accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

The website fails the following Level A and AA criteria:

1.1.1 - Non-text Content

• Course thumbnails have uninformative alt-text.

1.3.1 - Info and Relationships

• Some sections in the 'Create Account form, such as 'Why is this required?', are not read out by screen readers.
• Screen reader interpretation of the breadcrumb navigation on the Key Skills page is misleading - the navigation is interpreted as a list with two items, but the second item in the list is not keyboard accessible. 
• Screen readers do not read out the user's percentage progress on a course, despite progress being visually displayed on course modules.
• Required fields on the Create Account and Profile Edit pages are not indicated to the user until they have navigated away from an empty field and an error message appears.

1.3.4 - Orientation

• Text of the 'Animation Mode' submenu on the Help and Course pages is cut off when in landscape mode on handheld devices.

1.3.5 - Identify Input Purpose 

• Links in the Info Drawer on the Dashboard do not make their destination clear; all links simply read 'Update Here', which may be confusing for screen reader users.

1.4.3 - Contrast (Minimum)

• The 'Overall Progress' text on each uncompleted course module - grey on a white background - has low contrast.

1.4.4 - Resize Text

• Resizing any page on the site to above 200% zoom on a mobile device forces the user to scroll in two dimensions to access content. Some text may also be cut off at this zoom level. 125% zoom level is the optimum at which all content is still visible. This may affect users who require zoom levels higher than 125% to view text, as well as users who struggle to scroll in two dimensions.

1.4.10 - Reflow 

• The notifications toggle obscures the four graphical buttons in the header (i.e. Search, Notifications, etc.) when the toggle is opened.

1.4.11 - Non-Text Contrast

• The 'Close' button on the Login page is of low contrast with its white background.

2.1.1 - Keyboard

• A broken ARIA menu on the 'More' button in the header (visible only on mobile, at higher zoom levels and when viewing the desktop site in split screen) may affect the keyboard navigation of users viewing the site in full screen (i.e. with all header links visible). Users must use the Tab key to navigate into the header, and then use left and right arrow keys to reach other links in the header.
• The graphical search button inside the Notifications toggle is not keyboard accessible.

2.4.1 - Bypass Blocks

• Screen reader users may have difficulty locating the 'Skip To Content' link on the Create Account - a lot of other information from the main landmark is read out when the user navigates to this link, before the link itself is identified.
• Selecting the 'Skip to Content' link on the Home page takes keyboard focus into the footer instead of to the first link in the main landmark. This behaviour may be extremely disorienting for some users. 

2.4.2 - Page Title 

• Three pages lack page titles - the Login screen, Create Account and Dashboard.

2.4.3 - Focus Order

• The focus order on the Help and Course pages may disorient users reliant on a keyboard or screen reader - first the three module links in the main content receive focus, followed by the header, followed by the module links again (this time without red focus indicators). 
• The 'Back To Top' link on such pages as Home and Profile Edit takes the user visually up to the top of the page, but does not move keyboard focus to the top of the page. Keyboard users are therefore forced to tab through all the links in the footer to reach the top of the page. 

2.4.4 - Link Purpose (In Context)

• Three empty links are present in the footer. However, these are not picked up by the screen reader, so should not adversely affect most users.
• An instance of suspicious link text is present on the 'Continue' link in the Acceptable Usage Policy popup on the login page.
• One empty link is present on a cookie policy link in the cookie banner, which may disorient screen reader users.

2.4.6 - Headings and Labels

• Various pages in the site have skipped heading levels, including but not limited to the Profile, course and Key Skills pages. Users may find the lack of chronology in heading levels disorienting.
• An empty heading is present on the 'Edit' heading of the Profile Edit page, which may be confusing to screen reader users.

2.4.7 - Focus Visible

• The blue focus indicator on the '?' button in the footer - blue on a blue button - blends too well with the colour of the button to be clearly visible.
• A link situated directly behind the profile picture in the Info Block drawer on the Dashboard is focusable with the keyboard but not visible on the page.
• The title of a course on the Key Skills has no focus indicator but is keyboard accessible.

2.5.3 - Label In Name

• The Historic England Logo at the top left of every page in the site has a vague accessible label which, instead of reading out that it is a link to the home page, reads out 'Titus Academy'.
• The 'Help' button in the footer has a misleading accessible label, implying that the user can select the button to show or hide the footer. Selecting this button actually brings up a small Help menu where users can access policies and log out. 

3.2.3 - Consistent Navigation

• The header links on all pages are not accessible in the same way - the user must use the Tab key to navigate into the header, but must use the left and right arrow keys to navigate to the other links in the header rather than the Tab key. 

3.2.4 - Consistent Identification

• When focusing on the 'Home' link in the header on four pages - Help, course pages, Preferences and Profile - screen readers interpret that the user is currently on the Home page, which may be confusing for some users.

3.3.2 - Labels or Instructions

• The label for the grouping drop-down on the My courses page has very little meaning for screen reader users as it does not give a name for the dropdown and forces the screen reader to repeat several times that it is a menu without saying what the menu contains. 

3.3.1 - Error Identification

• Error messages on the Login screen, Create Account form and Profile edit page are keyboard accessible in their own right and, when selected, do not take the user to the field where the error occurred. Users reliant on keyboard and screen reader may therefore find it difficult to locate fields with errors.

4.1.1 - Parsing

• Parsing errors were found across all pages of the site.

4.1.2 - Name, Role, Value

• The Help button in the footer is interpreted neither as expanded nor collapsed by screen readers.
• It is not always interpreted by the screen reader whether the Actions Menu on the Dashboard is expanded on collapsed, especially on initial focus.
• The chevrons on the Profile Edit page are not interpreted correctly when expanded; the screen reader reads out an item from a combo-box selection contained within the chevron instead.

4.1.3 - Status Message

• The status message displayed to users upon creation of an account is only partially read out by screen readers.
• The status message on the Dashboard after a block is deleted only flashes up for a moment so is impossible to read even by sighted users. The message is also not read out by the screen reader.

Disproportionate Burden

Historic England uses the learning platform developed by Titus Learning Ltd. which is based on version 3 of the Moodle platform. Moodle and Titus are both committed to accessibility and are working to ensure compliance with the W3C WCAG AA standard with version 4 of their platform. 

Version 4 is now live and has been audited by Historic England, but some issues found during the audit are still live on the site. Titus Academy is currently working on fixes for many of the issues which Historic England have not been able to solve and we expect these to be uploaded to the live site in early 2024.

Some of the accessibility issues raised during the audit concern parts of the third-party software that Titus is unable to change. These are as follows:

2.1.1 - Keyboard

• A broken ARIA menu on the 'More' button in the header (visible only on mobile, at higher zoom levels and when viewing the desktop site in split screen) may affect the keyboard navigation of users viewing the site in full screen (i.e. with all header links visible). Users must use the Tab key to navigate into the header, and then use left and right arrow keys to reach other links in the header.

2.4.3 - Focus Order

• The focus order on the Help and Course pages may disorient users reliant on a keyboard or screen reader - first the three module links in the main content receive focus, followed by the header, followed by the module links again (this time without red focus indicators). 
• The 'Back To Top' link on such pages as Home and Profile Edit takes the user visually up to the top of the page, but does not move keyboard focus to the top of the page. Keyboard users are therefore forced to tab through all the links in the footer to reach the top of the page. 

2.4.4 - Link Purpose (In Context)

• Three empty links are present in the footer. However, these are not picked up by the screen reader, so should not adversely affect most users.

2.5.3 - Label In Name

• The 'Help' button in the footer has a misleading accessible label, implying that the user can select the button to show or hide the footer. Selecting this button actually brings up a small Help menu where users can access policies and log out. 

4.1.2 - Name, Role, Value

• The Help button in the footer is interpreted neither as expanded nor collapsed by screen readers.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

It is Historic England’s intention for https://training.historicengland.org.uk/ to become compliant. Towards this aim we will be focusing on working with Titus Learning Ltd., the supplier of our learning platform.

Titus endeavour to create accessible and inclusive products and aim to be compliant against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standard. 

Titus' learning platform is now built on version 4 of the Moodle platform and Historic England has migrated accordingly to this newest version of the software. Moodle are working to make version 4 compatible with WCAG 2.1 AA and Titus is working to mitigate any problems which have so far arisen from the new version of the software. Changes will continue to be rolled out on version 4 into 2024.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 24 April 2023. It was last reviewed on 24 April 2023.

This website was last tested on 17 April 2023. The test was carried out by Historic England. An example of every unique template which forms part of the public facing application was tested.