Accessibility
Accessibility statement for ORE
Statement last updated on 10 June 2025.
Our commitment to accessibility
At Oxford University Press, we always seek to make our products accessible to and inclusive of all our users, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive, or motor impairments.
To support these goals, we follow the general principles of web usability and universal design and, where feasible, endeavour to make our platforms and services accessible to all regardless of physical or cognitive impairment or the device used.
How accessible is ORE?
We are currently targeting adherence to level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1), to help our users take full advantage of the accessibility features provided by their chosen device, web browser or operating system or assistive technology.
The following functionality has been included for accessibility.
Information for blind users
- All content and interactive elements on the page are usable with screen readers
- Forms and inputs have been labelled so that their purpose is communicated via a screen reader
- All pages have skip navigation links so that repeated navigation elements can be bypassed
- New features are tested with the NVDA and the Google Chrome screen reader. Our VPAT assessment was conducted using NVDA.
- Images within content have captions provided. Please note alt text is not yet provided.
- Information on how to request accessible copies of content in any format is available on this page, under the section ‘How to request accessible copies of our publications’.
Information for partially-sighted and low-vision users
- All pages have been designed so that brightness contrast levels comply with the WCAG AA standard of 4.5:1 between foreground and background colours
- All pages can be magnified up to 400% and the page content will reflow so that all the content is presented on the page without the need for horizontal scrolling
- There may be browser features or extensions that will support your individual needs, such as changing text size and colour, or system settings or applications that can override colours on this site
- Adjusting monitor settings to change brightness, contrast or colour settings, or using physical coloured monitor overlays may also provide extra support when using this site
- Further tips and guidance for making adjustments to your computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone to make it easier to use can be found on the AbilityNet My Computer My Way resource.
Information for keyboard-only users
- All elements of this site should be reachable and usable with a keyboard
- Elements that can be used with a keyboard should display a visible focus outline when the element has been reached by the keyboard. The site will display the default outline style as determined by your browser; currently for Chrome this is a solid outline, and for Firefox or Internet Explorer this is a dotted outline
- Dropdowns and expandable menus can be opened by pressing Enter. Items within the menu can then be navigated using the Tab key. Check boxes can be checked or unchecked using the space bar
- Skip navigation links are present on every page to avoid having to tab through repeated page elements each time the page loads
Text-to-speech compatibility
Some users of the platform may benefit from listening to text. ORE does not currently include an embedded text-to-speech tool, although this is being considered as part of our roadmap. However, text-to-speech compatibility is:
- Built in to the Edge browser
- Available as plug-ins for Chrome and Firefox browsers
- Built into most modern digital devices such as PCs, Macs, tablets and smart phones.
We do recognise that some parts of this website may not be accessible to all users:
- some tables and diagrams contained within HTML format content are presented as images
- images within HTML content do not include alt-text but most include adjacent descriptions
- no transcripts are currently present for videos, but automated synchronised captions are available for some videos via YouTube
Whilst every effort is made to ensure that any third party we work with provide accessible software we cannot guarantee full AA compliance. Please let us know if you experience any problems (contact details provided below).
We will continue to update this page with details of further improvements as they are added to the site.
Forthcoming accessibility improvements
Planned development will address the following issues, where they appear:
- Missing alt text for images
- Insufficient colour contrast
- Inaccessible error messages
- Heading hierarchy issues
- Paragraphs links should not rely on colour alone
- Expand/Contract behaviour
- Primary navigation menu items overlap each other
- Remove confusing aria attributes on search filters
- Unclear text Labels
- Additional skip-to links on search
- Sign-In dropdown icon is not clear
Since commencing this programme we have delivered the following improvements:
May 2021:
- The ‘Search your Library’s Resources’ section of the subscriber login panel can now be used with a keyboard.
November 2020
- The expand and collapse options in the Table of Contents are now accessible for keyboard users.
July 2020
- Added fieldsets around filters in the advanced search/browse results page so that filter options are programmatically grouped together.
- Removed empty links from the Browse bar and elsewhere on the site to enable a more efficient keyboard and screenreader navigation experience.
- Added alt text to the ‘Find This Resource’ icons.
May 2020
- Improvements to form field labels to make sure they are programmatically associated with their form fields, enabling screen reading software to accurately communicate to the user what the form field is for.
- Popups are now usable with a keyboard, allowing keyboard users to view and download PDFs, amongst other site features.
- Visibility of focused elements when using a keyboard to navigate has been improved.
- Added ‘skip to main content’ links where missing to make it easier to access the key content on a page.
March 2020
- The share feature is now accessible for keyboard users and it’s now possible to tab beyond it to reach the rest of our site content. The feature and options are announced more clearly by screenreader software.
- Improvements to form submission include error messages that persist on the screen if the form has an error, notification of all form fields that have failed submission and clear identification of mandatory fields.
- Removal of the confusing experience for keyboard users of being able to tab through Browse menu items without the menu itself being open on the screen. Now the menu items will only be tabbed to if the user chooses to open the menu. Menus will also close when the focus is no longer within the menu.
- Page titles for images opened in a new tab are more meaningful and lengthy page titles have been truncated, to help screenreader users better understand which tabs are open in the browser.
December 2019
- Search results page no longer automatically refreshes every time a result display option is selected using a keyboard. The page now only refreshes once a change to the way results are displayed is submitted.
How we test this website
Our sites are regularly assessed by an independent third party with expertise in identifying accessibility issues. Detailed manual testing is undertaken and any issues identified are added to our development roadmap for remediation at the earliest opportunity.
Additionally, our in-house platform development team includes an accessibility expert who oversees our development roadmap to ensure that existing and new features and functionality are fully accessible in line with WCAG 2.1 AA.
We have taken steps to embed accessibility considerations throughout our development process. This means that every time we consider a new feature or functionality, or a change to an existing feature, ensuring that the feature is fully accessible for all users is front and centre in our planning and analysis.
We also work closely with our external development partners to ensure that they are fully invested in our commitment to accessibility for all.
Feedback and contact information
Our commitment to providing accessible and inclusive content is an ongoing activity. If you have any comments or insights on accessibility that you would like to share with us to help us in this mission, please contact us.
How to request accessible copies of our publications
Your Disability Resource Center or equivalent department can submit an accessibility request for content in a specific format to suit your personal needs. Details on how to submit a request can be found on our Accessibility Resources page. We will endeavour to meet any reasonable accessibility request that we receive within 5 business days.
Available formats
Content on ORE is available in both PDF and HTML format. The sections below provide guidance on how to navigate the HTML content.
PDF versions of content will open in a new tab when activating the PDF button in the chapter toolbar. They can then be read or downloaded using your browser’s inbuilt PDF controls.
PDFs are autogenerated from HTML and are structured and tagged. Embedded images do not have alternative text, although the image caption is provided adjacent to the image and can be read by a screenreader. We are aiming to improve the accessibility of our PDFs and will update this page when those improvements have been made.
To open PDF files, you will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader is highly configurable for visually impaired and motion-impaired users. For guidance, please see this document: Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
Navigation
The site can be navigated with both a mouse and a keyboard. Please see below for some specific guidance on navigating the site:
Skip links
Each page contains a skip link that will jump you to the main content on the page, bypassing the site toolbars which appear on every page. The skip link is the first link on every page and reads ‘Jump to Content’. The link appears as soon as you use the tab key to tab into the page. Please note we are aware of a current issue where the colour contrast of the text and background is not acceptable. The skip links will take you to different locations depending on the page, but in the majority of cases the links will jump to the first link in the page’s left-hand column:
ORE Homepage -> subscriber sign-in panel
Advanced Search page -> start of results list
Results page -> start of results list
Book content page -> book title
About pages -> start of main content
Please be aware that use of the skip links on About pages might bypass navigation on the left hand side of the page
Menus
There are several dropdown menus across the site. The Subject dropdown in the navigation bar will open on mouse-click or by pressing Enter on a keyboard when the menu receives focus. Note that the Share menu opens on mouse-hover. All dropdown menus are usable with a keyboard, by tabbing to the menu and then pressing Enter/Return to open the menu. The items within each menu can be reached by pressing the Tab key (or the up and down keys for the Term filter on the search page), and the menus can be closed again by Shift+Tabbing back to the menu link and pressing Enter/Return, or by opening another menu, or by tabbing or clicking outside of the menu.
Popups
Several site features such as PDF download, citation, or author information use popups. Popups appear on-screen once their link has been activated with a mouse or keyboard. When the popup opens the background fades to a dark grey. When a keyboard is used to open a popup, the focus will be pulled into the popup and remain within the popup until the user tabs to the ‘Close’ icon. When the popup closes the focus returns to the original link that opened the popup.
Links
All links within the site are reachable and usable with a mouse and keyboard. When a link receives focus it will be outlined by your browser’s default outline style, which is currently a solid outline in Chrome, and dotted outlines in IE, Edge and Firefox. Links can be activated with a keyboard by using the Tab key to reach the link, then pressing Enter/Return.
Browser and mobile device support
ORE is optimised for modern browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Google Chrome.
The site is responsive, meaning that the content reflows depending on the screen size and orientation of the device being used.
If you find any issues with accessing the content in any format or an any device, please get in touch via contact page and we will address the issue.
Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)
We have commissioned independent VPAT assessment reports to help us better understand how we can improve accessibility on ORE
The last assessment was performed on 7th June 2018 and can be downloaded using the link provided below. As we develop and improve our accessibility offering, we will provide updated VPATs on this page.
