We are committed to ensuring that this website is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so adhere to as many of the available standards and guidelines as is practicable

In July 2019, we launched the current version of the sab.ie website. This site has been designed from the ground up with accessibility in mind, following not only the requirements of the standards described below, but with further features including:

• Focus highlighting, for easier keyboard navigation
• Meaningful link text
• Contact details for support staff
• All new content published to the website will be fully accessible.

Some information on the website is provided in PDF format. PDF documents open in the separate software such as the freely available Adobe Reader - most modern computers have such software installed as standard. Newer PDF documents use the more accessible ("tagged") PDF, although some older documents pre-date that particular format and are untagged Typically PDF is used either because the document requires a precise printed layout such as forms, where the information contained is supplied by third parties or for larger reference documents where the expected volume of usage would not justify the additional effort of manually converting to accessible HTML 5.

If you have difficulty with the format of a particular document, and require information in an alternative electronic format, please let us know and we will endeavour to provide a more accessible version. Requests should be forwarded to heea@education.gov.ie.

Web Accessibility Initiative

This website strives to achieve "Triple-A" accessibility of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0), employing best practice techniques where certain Priority 3 checkpoints have become outdated.

The WCAG 2.0 explains how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. Conformance with these guidelines will help make the web more user friendly for all people.

W3C Standards

This site has been built using code compliant with W3C standards for HTML 5 and CSS 3. The site displays correctly in current browsers. It uses standards compliant HTML 5/CSS 3 code, meaning any future browsers should also display it correctly.

Exceptions

Whilst this site complies with known accessibility and usability guidelines, it is not always possible to do so to the letter of each checkpoint. Browsers and access technologies have outgrown many of the difficulties that once needed guidelines to overcome them, rendering some checkpoints obsolete.

In light of this, we are continually developing solutions that ensure the website conforms to the spirit of each checkpoint, bringing together a high standard of practical accessibility and usability throughout the website.

Pre-filled Form Fields

Checkpoint 10.4 of WCAG 2.0 recommends that until user agents (such as browsers or screen readers) are capable of recognising text fields that do not contain default text, text fields in forms should be pre-filled with text. Users testing, combined with evidence from our web stats, show that this is no longer a necessity for accessibility. Research has in fact shown that pre-filled text fields can cause difficulties for some modern screen readers; therefore, we do not include them.

Access Keys

Checkpoint 9.5 link recommends providing keyboard shortcuts to important links, often called "access keys". However, these have also caused problems, and our own and other organisation's testing have demonstrated that they are best left off public websites.

Future Strategy

• All new content published to the website will be fully accessible.
• We will aim to author more user-friendly, and customer-focused content.
• We will reduce the proportion of documents published in PDF and endeavour to publish content in HTML, where appropriate and practicable.

We are committed to maintaining and monitoring the accessibility of this website. As part of this process, we welcome all comments, suggestions and details of problems encountered by users. Should you experience any difficulty in using this website, please contact us at heea@education.gov.ie.