Accessibility known issues
1. Bodleian Libraries (www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Not all content – such as forms – can be navigated by keyboard;
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately;
- Some ARIA labels have been used incorrectly, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website.
- Some of our documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader;
We plan to fix the following issues by 30 September 2022:
- Make sure PDFs uploaded after 23 September 2018 or are business critical are accessible.
There is a separate plan for the technical accessibility of the website platform, Mosaic.
2. SOLO (solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
SOLO is built on a third-party product called Primo.
3. Visit the Bodleian Libraries (visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Not all content – such as forms – can be navigated by keyboard;
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately;
- Some ARIA labels have been used incorrectly, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website.
- There are skipped heading levels throughout the website;
- Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’);
- Some link text on the page is repeated but links to different destinations.
- Not all video has captions, text or audio description;
- Not all audio has captions or text description;
- Some images are missing alt tags or have alt tags which are not meaningful;
- Maps are not always accompanied with a text alternative;
- Videos and other iframe elements don’t contain a title;
- We will endeavour to add captions to recorded event videos within 2 months of publishing the video.
When we use embedded audio on our site, we may not always provide an alternative. We will work to develop transcripts or textual other alternatives to these instances on our sites.
- Some of our documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader;
- Some of our links to PDFs and other documents are not clearly signposted in links.
We plan to fix the following issues by 30 September 2022:
- Make sure PDFs uploaded after 23 September 2018 or are business critical are accessible;
- Ensure link text is clear and goes to the appropriate destinations;
- Ensure there are no skipped headings;
- Ensure all images have meaningful alt text;
- Provide a text alternative to maps;
- Ensure iFrames have titles;
- Ensure videos have captions.
There is a separate plan for the technical accessibility of the website platform, Mosaic.
4. Bodleian Libraries blogs (blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Not all content can be navigated by keyboard, including forms. It is also not possible to always navigate from expanded images;
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately.
- There are skipped heading levels throughout our blogs;
- Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’);
- Some link text on the page is repeated but links to different destinations;
- Bold and italics are used throughout the blogs;
- Some text is in a very small font;
- There are colour contrast issues with some of the text found across the blogs.
- Some images are missing alt tags or have alt tags which are not meaningful;
- Not all video has captions, text or audio description;
- Videos and other iframe elements don’t contain a title.
- Many of our documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader;
- Some of our links to PDFs and other documents are not clearly signposted in links.
The issues on our blogs require further investigate. We are in discussions to schedule these investigations and subsequent development work.
5. LibGuides (libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Some ARIA labels have been used incorrectly, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website.
- Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’);
- There are redundant links throughout the site;
- The footer text is in a very small font, which makes it hard to read;
- There are colour contrast issues with some of the text found across the websites;
- Tables have not been marked up correctly.
- Some images are missing alt tags or have alt tags which are not meaningful;
- Videos and other iframe elements don’t contain a title.
- Many of our documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader;
- Some of our links to PDFs and other documents are not clearly signposted in links.
We plan to fix the following issues by 23 February 2021:
- Make sure PDFs uploaded after 23 September 2018 or are business critical are accessible.
The whole site is being redeveloped with reviewed content and a new front-end design that will meet accessibility standards. It will go live in March 2021.
6. Bodleian Library Tickets
- Not all content – such as the Gift Aid form – can be navigated by keyboard;
- Some of our forms and input buttons aren’t labelled appropriately;
- There is some inappropriate use of ARIA labels, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website.
The following issues require further investigation:
- Not all content – such as the Gift Aid form – can be navigated by keyboard;
- Some of our forms and input buttons aren’t labelled appropriately;
- There is some inappropriate use of ARIA labels, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website.
7. Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts (archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Not all content can be navigated by keyboard, such as the collection navigation trees;
- Focus states are always clear when using a keyboard to move through site, such as the collection navigation trees;
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately;
- Some ARIA labels have been used incorrectly, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website;
- If styling is removed, not all content is displayed in a logical manner.
- There are colour contrast issues with some of the text found across the websites.
- Some information has just been presented graphically with no alternative, in particular the list of items included in the database on the homepage.
We plan to fix the following issues by 31 December 2020:
- Information that has just been presented graphically;
- Ensure that there is sufficient colour contrast;
- Ensure most ARIA labels are used correctly and appropriately.
The following issues require further investigation:
- Not all content can be navigated by keyboard, such as the collection navigation trees;
- Focus states are always clear when using a keyboard to move through site, such as the collection navigation trees;
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately;
- Some specific uses of ARIA labels, particularly on the collection navigation trees.
- If styling is removed, not all content is displayed in a logical manner.
8. Manuscript search engines
This covers a suite of websites built on the same technology platform:
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately;
- Some ARIA labels have been used incorrectly, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website;
- The language of the websites is not defined.
We plan to fix the following issues by 31 December 2020:
- Some of our search inputs and forms aren’t labelled appropriately;
- Some ARIA labels have been used incorrectly, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website;
- The language of the websites is not defined.
9. Digital Bodleian
- Not all components have ARIA labels, making it hard for accessibility tools to navigate the website;
- Some of our form fields aren’t labelled correctly.
- Not all text has sufficient contrast against the background colour.
We plan to fix the following issues by 31 July 2021:
- Text has sufficient colour contrast;
- Elements have the correct ARIA labels.
10. ORA (https://ora.ox.ac.uk/)
- Some pages contain HTML validation errors effecting the robustness of the website.
- Some issues with text display at different resolutions and orientations on some portable devices – such as overlap of text when reading horizontally on a tablet;
- The footer text is in a very small font, which makes it hard to read.
- Some information has been presented graphically or as an image with no alternative text, in particular content included on the statistics pages.
- Many of the documents available from the website don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader.
In 2024–25 we will continue to improve accessibility by doing the following:
- Fix HTML validation errors
- Improve responsive text display to avoid overlap
- Come up with a solution for the small font in the footer text
- Improve alternative text for the images on the statistics page
- Continue to explore accessible PDF for meeting 10.4 requirements
11. Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts Requests (requests.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
There are minor issues with navigability of two elements on the New Request and My Basket pages. These do not prevent the user from entering the required information.
The above issues require further investigation. We are in discussions with the third party who supply the product to see if improvements can be made.
Websites not yet tested
- Bodleian Shop (bodleianshop.co.uk): testing to be completed by 28 February 2021
- Manuscripts and Archives at Oxford (marco.ox.ac.uk): testing to be completed by 31 December 2023. A known issue is that buttons to show/hide long search filter value lists are not keyboard accessible
- Bodleian Images (bodleianimages.co.uk): a new website is due to go live by 31 December 2020
- The Apocalypse in Oxford (apocalypse.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Bod-Inc Online (incunables.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Ballads Opera Online (www.odl.ox.ac.uk/balladoperas)
- The Bodleian First Folio (firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- British Book Trade Index (bbti.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Broadside Ballads Project (ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Databank (databank.ora.ox.ac.uk)
- The Dicey and Marshall Catalogue (diceyandmarshall.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Digital Mushaf (digitalmushaf.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Digital Manuscripts Toolkit (dmt.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Digital Miscellanies Index (dmi.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Digital Preservation at Oxford and Cambridge (digitalpreservation.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Early modern letters online (emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- The Italian Opera Aria on the London Stage 1705-1801 (italianaria.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- London Book Trades (lbt.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Manuscripts from German-Speaking Lands (hab.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/en/)
- The Manual of Armenian Codicology and Palaeography (armenianpalaeography.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Medieval Paternoster Wheels (medievalpaternosterwheels.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Open Access Oxford (openaccess.ox.ac.uk)
- Oxford World War 1 Centenary Programme (ww1centenary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Polonsky Foundation Digitization Project (bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Queen Victoria's journals (qvj.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Rediscovering Rycote (rycote.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Rolling History (rollinghistory.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Serica (serica.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Shelly's Poetical Essay (poeticalessay.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory (simonpeter.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- TEXT-Inc (textinc.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth (tolkein.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Treasures of the Bodleian Libraries (treasures.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
- Verse Miscellanies Online - Printed Poetry Collections of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (versemiscellaniesonline.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- The Wandering Jew's Chronicle (wjc.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/)
- The William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné (talbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk)
Page last updated: 19 April 2024
