Compliance

Accessibility investment

The government has invested a large amount of time and resources in developing their digital services gov.uk theme. By 2014, over two years had been spent researching and improving the accessibility of their web interface, providing access to as many people as possible. This effort works towards complying with regulations surrounding accessibility for all. GDS advise 'if you exclude anyone from using your service based on disability, you may be in breach of the equality act 2010'

Govstrap.io re-uses and applies all of the previous investment and accessibility features as shared by GDS under an Open License.

There are also requirements to be met for assistive technology, this includes the following; screen readers: JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver for iOS X and OS X, Window Eyes, Supernova. Operating System screen magnifiers: ZoomText, MAGic. Speech Recognition software: Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Design regulations

Point 13 of the Digital by Default service standard states 'build a service consistent with the user experience of the rest of GOV.UK including using the design patterns and style guide." The Service Standard ensures digital teams build high quality government services. A transactional service must meet each criteria to pass the Government Digital Service assessment. If a service doesn’t pass it won’t appear on GOV.UK.

Govstrap.io is able to support the Government licensed fonts, although this typeface can only be used on official documents and sites hosted on the authorised GOV.UK domain

Testing and Audit

GOV.UK services are mandated to run their own tests, both automated and specialist, this means that a specialist accessibility review should be undertaken as soon as possible. This also means that they must get a full audit before the service is made public to ensure that it meets Level AA WCAG 2.0