What is accessible information?
Accessible information is information created and provided in a way that is available to everyone, in whatever format meets their needs. When we’re in a stressed situation, our ability to read and take in information is limited and our literacy levels fall, so it’s particularly important that health information is accessible to all.
Why is it important?
Having accurate, reliable and easy-to-read information helps you to feel involved, to make informed decisions and get the support you and your child need. But what if you prefer to read in your own non-English language, you have a visual impairment, you struggle to read, or you have a cognitive disability?
Globally, one in seven people have a disability. For many, they experience barriers when they’re on the internet. For example, people with visual impairments might struggle if information is only available in text format. And those with cognitive disabilities might find it difficult to read information on a crowded web page. This can impact their ability to access online content or services.
What is CCLG doing to make our health information more accessible?
At CCLG, we want to ensure that everyone can access our information, from our professional members to the patients and families we support. To ensure our digital information is accessible for everyone, we have speech, reading and translation support on our website with the ReachDeck Toolbar.
The toolbar helps us to make our online content more accessible to everyone, giving extra support to people that might need it. The toolbar offers our visitors assistive features to give them a choice in how they access our online information.
Our visitors can choose to have our content read out loud. They can also remove distracting content, add a screen tint with a reading pane to help them focus or they can translate our web pages into over 100 languages, in addition to much more.
How does it work?
On CCLG’s website click on the orange stickman icon in the bottom right-hand corner to launch the toolbar near the top of the webpage.
This toolbar will open at the top of the screen but can be moved around to suit. Click on each of the icons to find the right support tool you need, such as reading text aloud, translating into another language or simplifying the screen.
For example, to hear text read out loud, simply click on the ‘play’ icon and hover your mouse over any text. From a touchscreen device you’ll have to click on the text to hear it. Or, to apply a screen tint click on the eye icon.
To translate the page into another language, click on the ‘A’ box icon and choose your preferred language. Once translated, you can also listen to it read aloud in your chosen language.
To explore more, click on the question mark (?) icon to discover what each feature on the toolbar does. To use the tools with our publications, make sure that the toolbar is open on the website before you download them.
From Contact magazine issue 105 | Winter 2024
