Our goal is to always make you feel welcome when you visit Lahey Health. Our accessibility policy outlines the practices we follow to make sure you have access to the care and services information you need on our website. We encourage you to review the following policy. Please contact us if you have any questions about the accessibility policy.

We are committed to maintaining an accessible website that complies with best practices and standards as defined by Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act and level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

The website currently was tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Our most recent web accessibility audit for this website was February 2019.

Accessibility Features of this Website – WCAG Level AA Conformance

Perception

  • All content available on the website is either in text or has a text alternative which will be read with assistive technologies. All non-content is hidden from assistive technologies, which streamlines content of the page being viewed.
  • Content that does not explicitly have text descriptions are coded with assistive labeling instruct the user on their use/function.
  • Any content which is not presented until the user interacts with it (e.g I want to flyout panel, mega menus) is hidden from assistive technologies.
  • All elements which are focusable on the website are visually represented.
  • No decorative, invisible or formatted design are presented to the user and are ignored by assistive technology.
  • Image media on the site have title and alternative title descriptions for the visually impaired.
  • Video media currently have closed captioning provided by Youtube natively within their video software. Videos are keyboard accessible.
  • Website color and contrast support WCAG Level AA requirements.
  • The website supports a non JavaScript version. Content which require JavaScript (e.g Youtube, Google Maps) are not available or supported.

Operable

  • All of the content presented on the site is keyboard accessible. There are no areas of the site which a user will be limited by using a keyboard.
  • There is no time based content (e.g auto rotating banner sliders).
  • There is no content which moves, blinks or scrolls. Content may initially move or scroll while that particular element is being opened or closed however the content in question is static once the animation is complete (this transition time is approx. 0.3 seconds).
  • There is nothing on the website that flashes.
  • The HTML structure of the site provides assistive technologies the ability to navigate each page by going directly to identifiable roles of content. (i.e Header, Main Content, Search, Footer).

Understandable

  • The HTML framework for every page is built the same to provide assistive technologies and users the best experience navigating the website. This includes table data.
  • The website is translatable. No content will disrupt language translations from occurring.

Robustness

  • There are no HTML errors, console errors by the native website software, excluding software from third parties (e.g YouTube, Google Maps).
  • Forms provide appropriate labeling for assistive technologies for any input required by the user. Error suggestion is also provided in the event a user does not enter the form correctly.
  • As described above, the website structure is built to produce reliably similar experience, semantically, from page to page.
  • User interface or interactive elements are named or described by text indicating the respective state the element is in.

Structural Markup

Web pages includes the following 6 primary areas which are consistent on every page.

  1. Header – Contains website utility and main navigation/menus.
  2. Site Search – Provides users the ability to search the website/AU.
  3. Quick Links/Utility Panel – Provides immediate access to high trafficked links.
  4. Main Content – Contains the relative content of the page
  5. Sidebar – Typically contains section level navigation or filtering contents on a page template basis.
  6. Footer – Contains AU specific/relative quick access links, copyright information.

Each page is not limited to the above areas and may include additional areas depending on the content (e.g Pagination Next, Previous).

When CSS (Cascading Styles Sheet) are not applied to a document (or when using a screen reader), the areas are displayed in the above order. The Main Content may or may not include additional areas of importance’s like pagination.

Images

  1. Unless they are purely decorative items, all images used on this web site have suitable alt attributes. Images which are set as background images have a complementary screen reader description.
  2. Content is usable/accessible with images “off” (disabled).

Links

  1. Links have text that fully describes the target.
  2. Links are written to make sense out of context.
  3. URLs are permanent whenever possible.

Forms

  1. All form controls are appropriately and explicitly labeled.

Scripts

  1. The all pages of this website are functionally from a content perspective without JavaScript. This excludes third party vendors in some cases which require JavaScript to function. (e.g Google Maps, Tribe Events, YouTube).

Pop up Windows

  1. There are no pop up windows on the website.

Visual Design

  1. This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.
  2. If your browser or browsing device does not support style sheets at all, the content of each page is still readable and accessible.
  3. Any information conveyed through the use of color is also available without color (i.e. text based).

Areas for Improvement

We are aware of some areas on the website where we could improve accessibility. We are currently working to achieve this. We are continuing our work to achieve “Level AA” conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Areas for Improvement Table
Section of website Need for improvement
Video Video media transcripts
Screen Reading Ensuring web-pages are purposeful and clear for screen readers to navigate while using assistive technologies (e.g JAWS).

Known Conformance Errors

Some areas of the website during to course of testing produced invalid or non-conformance results. Some third-party applications also produced invalid or non-conformance results. The following are invalid conformance details and explanations.

Known Conformance Errors Table
Component Invalidation/Error Comments/Explained
Youtube Console Error: Failed to execute ‘postMessage’ on ‘DOMWindow’: The target origin provided (‘https://www.youtube.com’) does not match the recipient window’s origin (‘https://www.lahey.org’). This is a cross origin error unable to be resolved at this time.
Events Console Error: GoogleMaps Javascript API Error Event maps is not currently enabled on the website however the software is still looking for an activated google maps api key
Document <head> WC3 Validation: X-UA-Compatible HTTP header.

Bad value for attribute http-equiv.

 Both errors are reported however both are valid HTML5 according to HTML5 specification. The error is a result of the validation software not in sync with current web specification.
Contrasting Color Wave Error: Color contrast for 1 or more elements of the site are insufficient Assistive screen reader text have contrast errors, however screen reader text is excluded from conformance requirements. All elements which are required to conform to color contrast were manually checked to ensure conformance despite the WAVE error report.

How to Send Feedback on this Website’s Accessibility

We welcome feedback on the accessibility of this website.

  • Email accessibility issues to us at [email protected]
  • Phone us  at 781-744-5100
  • Write to us at Lahey Health System, Inc., c/o Website team, 41 Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01805