What accessibility standards do we adhere to?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for web accessibility, defining requirements for designers and developers to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities. There are three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.
Meeting these standards for interactive content can be complex, but we are committed to doing so. Our LabSim Libraries are built with accessibility in mind, and strive to balance accessibility, usability and pedagogy in equal measure. We have set a goal of achieving WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for the Bioscience LabSim Library by September 2025.
The Bioscience Library is currently WCAG 2.1 A compliant and, in line with next year’s goal, we have recently made several updates to improve accessibility. These updates focus on three WCAG rules:
- 1.4.3 Text Contrast
- 2.4.7 Focus Visibility
- 1.3.1 Information and Relationships (Heading Order)
Changes for students
Colours: Text contrast
The colour of backgrounds and text has been modified to increase contrast and therefore readability; for example, as seen in the image below, the orange ‘check’ box with black text has been changed to a blue box with white text.
Focus visibility
We’ve made focus elements more obvious for all components on a page, including borders around selected elements. This is an important feature for students using their keyboards to navigate LabSims, as it ensures they can clearly see what is selected on the screen.
HTML updates
Heading order
In interactive content, it’s important that all information and semantics should be accessible to users navigating via assistive technologies like screen readers. This particularly applies to information that is communicated through visual cues like headings and text groupings.
We’ve completed some updates to the Bioscience LabSims to ensure this criteria is fully met, so all users are able to benefit from the LabSims’ capabilities and enjoy an enhanced learning experience.
Additional minor updates and bug fixes
Each Labsim in the Bioscience Library has been re-tested and a variety of additional minor issues have been fixed, including:
- Improving non-text colour contrast,
- Improving specific tab index issues to enhance the general experience for keyboard users.
