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Accessibility of this website

Website accessibility

Accessibility statement for hrp.org.uk

This accessibility statement applies to www.hrp.org.uk

This website is run by Historic Royal Palaces. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • 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've also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible is our website?

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

  • some video elements may lack a transcript or audio descriptive track
  • skipped heading levels may be present across some pages
  • Word and PDF documents may not be accessible to screen reader users
  • some decorative images may not have an appropriate alternative value

Contacting us to visit in person

If you need any assistance or information to help you plan a visit to one of our palaces, please contact us:

Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0333 320 6000
You can also read our Access information for each of our palaces at the links below.

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 us via email at [email protected] and our web team will deal with your report.

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) or for users in Northern Ireland, the Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Historic Royal Palaces 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-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  1.  Some images within word documents lack an alternative text that is read aloud by screen readers. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 Non-Text Content. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024 
  2.  Some decorative images may have a descriptive alternative attribute. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 Non-Text Content. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  3.  Some video-only content lacks a text alternative. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.1 Pre-Recorded Audio-Only and Video-Only. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  4.  Some videos may lack a text-based transcript or audio description track. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-Recorded). We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  5.  Some videos may lack an audio description track. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-Recorded). We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  6.  Some PDF documents may not be tagged resulting in the PDF being inaccessible to screen readers. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  7.  The ‘Learn more’ and carousel controls are unable to be interacted with using only a keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  8.  Some pages may contain empty headings which may impact navigation using headings when navigating using a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  9.  Some iframes may lack an appropriate title identifying the content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  10.  Whilst tabbing content there may not always be a fully visible tab focus indicator present. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  11.  Some elements on the page may have an accessible name that differs from the visual name, which may impact speech recognition software. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.5.3 Label in Name. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024
  12.  Some PDF documents may not contain XMP metadata, which may cause the content of the document to be inaccessible to screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value. We plan to resolve this by: March 2024.

Disproportionate burden

Some buttons relating to social media sharing may lack an accessible name, resulting in no content being announced by a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 Non-Text Content.

Text contrast within the social pop-up does not meet the minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum).

Some pages may contain empty links that do not announce the destination when focused by a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context).

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By March 2024, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to improve the accessibility on this website over the next 12 months. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 18 September 2023. It was last reviewed on 18 September 2023. The website was last tested on 16 August 2023. The test was carried out by Zoonu and our internal team. 

Zoonu used WCAG-EM to define the pages tested and test approach. 

 

Accessibility at the palaces

Please see below for information on accessibility at any of our palaces, including provision for visitors with mobility needs, for parents and families with children on the autism spectrum, for blind and partially sighted visitors and for deaf people and those with hearing loss.