Measures to support accessibility

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is committed to making our website as user friendly as possible for everyone. We designed our website to be accessible and responsive, based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 

Compliance Status

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. https://www.hiqa.ie/ is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.

Technical specifications

Accessibility of https://www.hiqa.ie/ relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

  • HTML
  • WAI-ARIA
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • SMIL

These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used. User agents, assistive technologies and tools used to check accessibility webpages were tested with the following combinations of browsers and screen readers: 

  • Firefox 135.0 and NVDA 2024
  • Firefox 135.0 and JAWS 2023
  • Safari 17.5 and VoiceOver (macOS Sonoma 14.5)

The following pages of https://www.hiqa.ie/ were checked for compliance: 

Non-accessible content
  • Keyboard navigation: HIQA are working on improving the experience when navigating the website via a keyboard, this includes improving the implementation of better focus design.
  • Link text: HIQA are currently working on links and labels that do not give content, unique link names will be applied where possible or an ARIA label.
  • None text content: HIQA are currently working on ensuring that images have an accessible name or are marked as decorative to improve readability.
  • Correctly structured content and heading usage: HIQA are currently working through all pages to create logical heading and content structures.
  • Forms: HIQA are working on improving form validation and focus in order to improve readability and visibility.
  • Document accessibility: Requires implementation currently. If you require an accessible document, please contact us using the contact information within the feedback section.
Content outside the scope of accessibility requirements

The following third-party scripts are exempt from accessibility requirements, as they are external content that HIQA are unable to modify:
 

  • YouTube/Vimeo video iFrame reader
  • Cookie management
Assessment approach

HIQA assessed the accessibility of https://www.hiqa.ie/ by the following approaches:
 

  • Self-evaluation
  • External evaluation
Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of https://www.hiqa.ie/. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers on https://www.hiqa.ie/:

Our Access Officer, Susan Montgomery, assists and provides support to people with a disability accessing the services we provide.  If you would like to contact the Access Officer, you can do so by:

  • Post: Access Officer, Health Information and Quality Authority, Unit 1301, City Gate, Mahon, Cork, T12 W7CV.
  • Email: smontgomery@hiqa.ie
  • Phone: (021) 240 9300

We try to respond to feedback within 5 working days.