As of September 2020 we cannot publish new web pages and documents to GOV.UK unless they meet accessibility requirements.
Accessibility should be one of the first things to consider when creating new UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) web pages or documents.
It's much easier to make a new publication accessible from the start than it is to make an existing document accessible by tweaking it once it is complete.
Digital first - the benefits of web pages
The best format to publish documents is as HTML web pages. (HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language which is the code used to structure web pages. It's widely used as shorthand for a web page.)
The Government Digital Service (GDS) who manage the GOV.UK domain strongly recommends that GOV.UK content should be published in HTML and not PDF.
HTML web pages are:
- easy to keep up to date
- correctly display in all browsers and devices
- are compatible with screen readers
- easy to add images, videos and links to
- easy to share
How we choose what to publish as HTML
If a document is relatively short (10 pages or under) and has few if any graphs or tables, then we will automatically recommend it be turned into a web attachment.
If we publish leaflets, posters or infographics, we require them to be accompanied by an HTML attachment which is a full transcription of the text.
Longer documents require assessing. If they contain numerous graphs and tables then we may be obliged to publish them as PDFs, but please note: HTML web pages are our preferred format for publishing documents.
Accessible HTML pages
See Checklist: HTML web pages for advice on making an HTML web attachment accessible.
Accessible PDFs
See the guidance about making PDFs accessible.
The best way to ensure a PDF is accessible is to make sure the Word document it's derived from is as accessible as possible.
Step on is using the approved UKHSA Word template. See the guidance in the Gateway publishing and Word documents section.
Accessible spreadsheets
See guidance on Spreadsheets.
Accessible visual elements
Whatever format content is published in, we must ensure that all visual elements are accessible.
The simplest way to do this is to ensure that all visual elements - whether graphs, infographics, flow charts or other visual elements - must have a text equivalent in the main body copy.
In the case of infographics and flow charts, this means a complete transcription of all the content in the main body of the text.
We do not use alt text, in either HTML web pages or PDF documents.
A note on slidedecks
Please note that PowerPoint slidedecks are not an appropriate format for publishing new content, whether reports or guidance.
New guidance, reports and so on must be published in an accessible format, ideally as HTML web pages or, if necessary. as PDFs.
Slidedecks can be uploaded to Khub and linked to from an HTML page, but only if they are purely for presentation purposes only and all the content in them has been published in an accessible way (HTML or PDF).