Accessibility statement
We continue to improve the accessibility of IFRC.org for people with visual, physical and cognitive impairments. If there are steps we can take to make your user experience better, please let us know.
Making our website accessible
At the IFRC, inclusion is integral to everything we do. In our work supporting communities around the world, we strive to leave no one behind. We want to make sure these principles apply to our website, too, by improving our digital accessibility for people with disabilities.
In 2022 and 2023 we worked with an external company that specializes in web accessibility. The company conducted several rounds of user testing with people with a range of disabilities to see whether they encountered any difficulties using our website.
Based on feedback from these users, we made the following improvements to accessibility:
- Added breadcrumbs to all pages to ensure that the site’s content structure is clear to the user
- Added headings describing each individual component on all pages
- Added aria-descriptions to the navigation menu
- Improved the usability of the navigation menu for people using screen readers or navigating using the Tab key
- Added aria-descriptions and tab functionality to accordion components
- Ensured that all pages follow a logical hierarchy (H1, H2 etc.)
- Ensured that list content is properly formatted and is accessible to screen readers
- Improved colour contrast for active state on navigation menu items
- Improved user experience of some “read more” elements: for instance, scrolling to the content on click
- Removed keyboard traps from the header when navigating with Tab
- Added alt text to all external links notifying users that the link will open in a new tab
- Improved usability of tabs components: user can now navigate using arrows and Tab, content and labels now have proper roles and aria-descriptions
- Made gallery component items accessible when navigating with keyboard
- Changed the date picker to the native one to ensure it is accessible by keyboard and screen readers
- Added alt text to number icons so that screen readers can read them
- Improved text contrast for image captions
- Updated the layout and functionality of the search page so that all fields appear in a logical order. The search bar toggle in the header is now accessible by keyboard and with screen readers
- Added a reset button to all pages which use/apply filters so users can get back to their original state
- Improved design of document pages so that download links are differentiated from tags and are easier to find
- Added a full sitemap
- Improved the usability of the social share buttons and made them clear to the user
Conformance
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.
IFRC.org is currently partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level A and meets several level AA criteria.
We continue to improve IFRC.org based on the WCAG requirements. Here is a list of known issues we are currently working to resolve:
- Ensure icons and images have alt text
- Ensure that all carousels and image galleries are properly accessible to screen readers
- Make sure arrow keys in carousels are visible on mobile screens
- Ensure that headings on DREF dashboard have sufficient contrast and are readable
Share your feedback
A staff member for the Democratic Republic of the Congo Red Cross works on her computer and smiles.
Photo: IFRC/Corrie Butler
The IFRC Web Team is always looking to improve IFRC.org for our users.
If you are struggling to access, navigate or interact with IFRC.org in any way – or have general feedback on how we could make our website more accessible for your needs – we would like to hear from you.
Please email [email protected] and a member of the IFRC Web Team will get back to you.