Large Print on UK Parliament website
A quick snapshot into my life and brain, as I move through time and space trying my best to advocate for accessibility and SEND matters.
At the weekend, I was on the UK Parliament website to submit evidence for the inquiry into the SEND Crisis and I noticed it had a list of "Alternative Formats" available in which to read the Call for Evidence.
My little heart is so happy when I see accessible versions of text, so I decided to take a quick look at the Large Print version, just to extend the good feelings for a little while before I got down to the reality of the evidence I was providing.
It was a PDF. Good feelings evaporated immediately. A PDF is not an accessible format, but it's better than nothing, at the barest of minimums I guess. I opened the PDF and opened up the edit function, to find it was only set at 18 point text, which is medium size, and each paragraph of text was in a separate text box, so even if you wanted to increase the text size, it'd be a page design and typesetting adventure.
It seems like another case of a large institution ticking the box of accessibility without looking into it or considering the end user experience. A 18-point PDF is about as useful for the visually impaired as the website itself is; you can adjust text size more easily in most browsers, so why half-arse a large print PDF at all, if it isn't just to provide an illusion of accessibility? The government needs to do better for all the people it works for.
In this moment, I thought I'd email the Publishing Accessibility Action Group and I did so this morning. Within minutes, I had an email from someone who knew how to look into this – which honestly shows you every you need to know about the brilliant and fabulous souls who are part of this group. It's a small issue, but so is each grain of sand on the beach and as a collective, we'll get there.
A snapshot from the UK Parliament Committee Website asking for a Call for Evidence into the SEND Crisis. There is a list of alternative formats, including BSL Translation video, EasyRead PDF, Large Print PDF and an Audio Description (audio file)
