The background

Healthwatch Trafford is part of the Healthwatch Network. The organisation helps the people of Trafford get the best out of their local health and social care services; whether it’s improving them today or helping to shape them for tomorrow. Healthwatch Trafford is all about the local voices being able to influence the delivery and design of local services.

The challenge

Healthwatch Trafford wished to expand their website’s appeal to a wider audience, and to help more people browse and access their services online.

If Healthwatch Trafford’s web content and services are not accessible, then barriers exist between highly valued local voices and the organisation. They wanted to make their website's online content easily accessible to people with dyslexia, reading difficulties, visual impairments and those with English as a second language, whilst complying with legal obligations for website accessibility.

The organisation sought to demonstrate greater social responsibility and to find a solution which would give confidence and independence to their online visitors who lacked digital skills.

The solution

Healthwatch Trafford's website is now equipped with user-friendly speech, reading and translation tools, thanks to ReachDeck. ReachDeck is a leading literacy and accessibility software, designed to cater for those who have low digital skills, literacy barriers, disabilities, or English as a second language.

Adam Webb, Communications and Information Officer, explained: “Healthwatch Trafford is all about listening to local voices, and allowing them to influence the delivery and design of local service. We at Healthwatch Trafford adopted ReachDeck on our website as we are very keen for our service to be as accessible as possible to as many members of our community as we can.”

Lasting impact

Now, online visitors of www.healthwatchtrafford.co.uk have the option of having content read aloud to them, helping to aid understanding of the website and improve their overall experience. Online content can be read aloud in multiple languages. Other features available include a text magnifier, screen masking, web page simplifier and more.

Additionally, ReachDeck has equipped the website with a MP3 generator, allowing visitors to convert web content to a audio file for more convenient listening wherever, whenever and on whatever device they wish to use. Combined, these tools help reduce barriers between Healthwatch Trafford's website and their audiences.

ReachDeck

As well as the accessibility toolbar, ReachDeck's features also include:

• The ReachDeck Auditor identifies accessibility errors across your website. It highlights WCAG compliance errors at Level A, AA and AAA, and identifies readability errors such as overuse of jargon or long sentences
• The ReachDeck Editor helps improve the quality and accessibility of written content. As you type, grammar, spelling and readability errors are identified. This helps organisations edit content in line with best practice.
  

These features identify accessibility barriers quickly and at scale, helping organisations ensure their content can be understood by everyone.