Welcome to the accessibility page for the Lyell Collection. This accessibility statement applies to The Lyell Collection and all Geological Society of London's publications under the umbrella of this site.
The Lyell Collection website is run by The Geological Society of London. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).
We’ve also tried to make the website text as simple as possible to understand.
The AbilityNet website has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
The Geological Society of London aims to make its online journal and book content accessible to all our visitors and improvements to the site will be made on an ongoing basis. Our commitment to this endeavour reflects the growing customer need for accessibility to our content in order to best support the science and communities we serve.
Web Standards and auditing
Our website is developed using valid HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript to the standards laid out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) - Level AA.
The website content works with assistive technologies that visitors might use, such as screen readers or text only browsers.
Our technology partner, HighWire, has an ongoing strategy to support accessibility as defined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (level A) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. HighWire annually audits its book and journal site products against these standards. Standard HighWire pages for book and journal sites either ‘support’ or ‘partially supports’ these standards where applicable.
The Geological Society of London is currently auditing its publisher-produced pages for conformance to the latest WCAG 2.1 guidelines. The Society is also working towards completing an international VPAT by end of 2020.
We undertake accessibility audits of the platform before every major update using WCAG 2.1 AA standards which guide our long-term audit and improvement plans.
Assistive technology compatibility
Testing was carried out using Adobe Acrobat DC, NVDA, VoiceOver, Pericles and the Select and Speak - Text to Speech (Google Chrome extension) in Windows 10. We also used the Axe and WAVE plugins for Chrome and the Google Lighthouse tool available within the Google Inspect Accessibility Audit tool. We do not endorse any specific software.
Our HTML journal articles are accessible to screen readers and can be magnified in the browser up to 200% without any loss of functionality.
Navigation of our publication websites can be made using standard keyboard shortcuts and all pages include a “Skip to main content” link to make it easier to reach the main content on the page. Pages are also descriptively titled and navigation links are consistent across pages to make it easy to understand navigate all of our publication sites.
What we do about known issues
We work to achieve and maintain WCAG 2.1 AA standards, but it is not always possible for all our content to be accessible. Where content is likely to create a barrier, we’ll state a reason, warn users and try to offer alternatives.
If we have failed to identify a barrier, please contact us.
Contact information and feedback
If you have questions, comments or feedback regarding accessibility or the content of this page, please email us at sales@geolsoc.org.uk or telephone +44 1225 445046 if outside the UK or 01225 445046 within the UK. We will endeavour to respond to your message within 2 working days. Be as specific and detailed as you can. Please also tell us what you like and find useful. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has useful tips on contacting organisations about inaccessible websites.
File formats for our content
Our current journal and book content is available across the Lyell Collection in full-article HTML and PDF formats. HTML is considered to be the most accessible format. Content older than 2007 for books and 2000 for journals is HTML abstract only plus full-article PDF. All files are free of digital rights management (DRM).
Please note that all support documentation is on the website and there is no non-electronic documentation as the product is entirely electronic.
Known issues
We are working with our hosting provider on many of the issues listed below. Please let us know if you would like more detail on any of these issues.
- We started producing accessible mathematical equations using MathJax and MathML in January 2019. MathML format is compatible with text-to-speech engines, can be magnified, converted to Braille and pasted into math equation editors and/or Microsoft Office documents. Content prior to January 2019 contains mathematical equations in image file format.
- Our PDF files are accessible to screen readers and all PDFs should have searchable, selectable text. However, some of our older PDF content is not searchable as it is supplied as scanned PDFs. If you require a PDF for screen reading and it is not available, please email us at sales@geolsoc.org.uk and we will endeavour to provide a searchable version of the PDF.
- We use alternative image text when possible, however, our research content does not currently use alternative image text because the images are scientific figures, which have separate explanatory captions. Also the GSL logo in the page footer does not have alt text.
- Some of our colours do not have sufficient colour contrast, however, we are currently (August 2020) working with our supplier on this.
- The image carousel on https://www.lyellcollection.org/ and all homepages: the scrolling starts automatically and cannot be stopped.
- The CrossMark "Check for updates" button and "TREND MD" settings button cannot be reached via the keyboard.
- Some hidden elements come into focus. For example at https://www.lyellcollection.org/#main-content, the text for the publication title comes into focus but on the next tab click nothing comes into focus.
- There are some pages that skip heading levels (some help pages plus the list of 'All issues' pages).
- Keyboard users have to step through all submenu items to get to the next top-level item for all dropdown menus on the sites.
- There is no obvious means to pause, stop, or hide the image carousel on the Home pages (on umbrella and each publication homepage).
- Various pages have missing form labels or multiple form labels.
- There are a few instances of IDs of active elements not being unique.
- The Alerts summary page is difficult to navigate using keyboard and read by a screenreader.
- A few pages contain links that are empty.
- The CrossMark logo on articles pages does not have alt text.
- There are a few instances of broken skip links.
- There are a few instances of <frame> or <iframe> elements not having a title (e.g. Facebook Like button).
- On the final FoxyCart checkout page, the <html> element does not have a lang attribute.
- When testing using the NVDA reader on the publication homepages, e.g. https://jgs.lyellcollection.org/, each image carousel item (lower down page) is read twice.
This page was reviewed and updated September 2020