With the European Accessibility Act (EAA) coming into force imminently, we’ve improved our eReader’s accessibility features to ensure compliance with new standards.
Our commitment to accessibility
Since our inception, we’ve been committed to accessibility. At Kortext, we believe that every student should be able to access their learning materials in a way that suits their needs.
That’s why we’ve continuously strived to remove barriers to learning and ensure that our eReader offers the best possible experience for all users, regardless of disability or impairment.
The accessibility features in our eReader include read aloud, customisable fonts and backgrounds, adjustable display options, alt text, navigational tagging, and more.
We’re also proud to have achieved a 100% gold ASPIREscore for the quality of information provided in our accessibility statement. In fact, Kortext has been a supporter of ASPIRE since its inception in 2018, winning an excellence award at the inaugural ASPIRE Awards in 2019.
Compliance with new standards
Recently, we’ve been working to make sure our eReader is fully compliant with the EAA, which comes into effect on 28 June 2025. The legislation provides a framework to address divergent rules in national accessibility standards for digital products across EU member states.
Even though the UK is no longer a member of the European Union, the EAA applies to UK businesses that trade in the EU providing goods and services to consumers.
Through our EAA-compliance work, we’re proud to say that our eReader is now also compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 level AA.
The WCAG are internationally recognised standards that enhance web accessibility by ensuring digital content is perceivable, operable, understandable and robust for users with disabilities.
How we’ve made changes
In order to identify and implement improvements, our eReader was subject to a comprehensive accessibility audit by a third-party company that specialises in accessibility testing.
They provided us with detailed feedback on necessary adjustments. We have addressed every issue identified in their Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) report.
In all, there have been around 100 changes to our eReader to enhance accessibility. These include keyboard-only controls for all functionality, updated labels to assist screen readers, and improved visual accessibility. You can find more details in our platform update.
A closer look at the process
Let’s take a more detailed look at what the audit involved. The third-party company conducted a thorough examination of our platform following these steps:
- A technical analysis by a sighted accessibility expert to identify issues affecting users with mobility, hearing and low vision impairments. Each screen was reviewed in Google Chrome using the WAVE and aXe toolbars, with additional code analysis through Developer Tools.
- A keyboard accessibility test, navigating the app entirely by keyboard, both in Chrome and Safari. This step focused on users with mobility and physical impairments.
- A review of all audio content to ensure appropriate captioning was in place to assist deaf and hard of hearing users.
- An evaluation of accessibility for low vision users, conducted in three ways: using the screen magnification, palette and contrast controls in the operating systems; using the browser-based font resizing capability; and using Colour Contrast Analyser v2.2.
- Screen reading testing conducted by an expert who is legally blind. They evaluated the eReader using JAWS with Google Chrome, and VoiceOver with Safari on OSX.
What’s next?
Our next step is to undergo a new VPAT audit to confirm that our product now supports all applicable accessibility criteria.
We’ll share the VPAT document on our website as soon as it’s available, along with any other new information relating to our accessibility commitment.
However, that’s not all. As our products evolve and we develop new features, we’ll be keeping accessibility at the forefront of our minds and striving to make more improvements.
If you have any questions about accessibility, please contact our team today.
