In the last year, we have been working to improve the accessibility of the RSpace product. Ensuring that all researchers have equal access to use RSpace to do their work is important to us, and we recognised that the state of the web application needed to reflect those values better. There's a long road to go, but we're happy with the progress we've been able to make so far.

Accessibility Guidelines

All new functionality meets the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 standard and now so too do some of the older parts of the product. In the past year we've re-worked the Apps page, with one of the many benefits being that it meets the aforementioned standard (see Figure 1). We've also ensured that the dialogs that provide the integrations with iRODS, Argos, and DMPTool all meet the standard too; redesigning them to tie-in to the branding of their respective organisations.

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The WCAG standard requires that all web pages adhere to four principles: that they be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. To this end, some of the specific things we've done to ensure equal access include:

• Ensuring all controls can be interacted with solely from a keyboard. As such, the page remains operable even to those who find mice and other pointing devices difficult to use.

• We're not solely using colour anywhere to communicate information; there will always be an icon or label alongside any use of colour. This is so that all information is perceivable to all, even those with one of many visual disabilities such as colour blindness.

• The correct headings are also always being used in the right order, with semantic markup being used to expose information to accessibility technologies like screen readers and braille keyboards, a key part of ensuring that the product meets the four principles for users who rely on such tools.

All of this means that the RSpace product is far more accessible without users or administrators having to do anything; it should simply be easy to use for a wider group of users, which is great!

High contrast & reduced motion modes

However, there are some additional pieces of functionality that we've also added that are opt-in, providing more advanced adjustments for those who want them, including a high contrast mode and a reduced motion mode. These are device settings that Web browsers expose to webpages allowing them to adjust to user preferences.

High contrast mode requests that the webpage alter the colours to provide a greater degree of contrast between adjacent elements, especially between text and the background on which it is shown, which is designed to help those with poor or limited vision. When enabled, we strip away superfluous colours that are simply part of the design and use black text on a white background wherever possible (see Figure 2).

Reduced motion mode is designed to help those with severe motion sickness, and it simply instructs webpages not to animate elements where at all possible. No part of the RSpace product relies on animations so whenever this mode is enabled, we simply disable them all.

Each part of the product that supports these opt-in modes has a little outstretched man icon in the top right corner that, when tapped, shows which are available. Each of these tips links to the operating system or browser documentation on how to enable it on your device (see Figure 3). Once enabled, these tips turn green (see Figure 4).

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We're starting out with the iRODS, DMPTool, and Argos dialogs and are aiming to add more. Watch out for the icon across the product as we aim to place RSpace at the forefront of software tools that provide a great experience for all!