Accessibility on Client Systems

We are committed to providing an accessible interface both for candidates and client users of our systems.

We are approaching accessibility in two ways: standards based compliance and real world accessibility.

Standards Based Compliance

For our SHL Online system we are working toward compliance with WCAG V2 AA standard as well as Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act. There is significant overlap between the two standards and, having taken independent expert advice, we are confident that these standards effectively provide compliance with other global requirements or standards.

Real World Accessibility

We are ensuring that our services can be used in practice by people with a variety of disabilities and that we have tested our solutions in these scenarios.  Adding this element to our approach to accessibility ensures the practicalities of using assistive technologies, or implementation of other adjustments which may be required, and preserving the integrity of our assessments while still being usable by candidates.

It is important to note that not all of our assessments are accessible to all assistive technologies or accommodations, today or in the future. For example, where the measurement of a core construct of an assessment would cause an undue burden or compromise to the intent of the assessment, we will not support it. An example that our third party accessibility expert used was that he, as a blind person, cannot take a driving test; and that is entirely reasonable and not discriminatory. While an extreme example, it illustrates the point well.

We have specified the assistive technologies we are working to support across both the candidate and the administrator sides of SHL Online. This covers the mainstream screen readers, voice control software and screen magnification technologies, as well as common inbuilt accessibility support on some operating systems.

We are making changes to our online platform to support accessibility for our candidates and clients.

Candidate Accessibility

  • images will have alternative descriptions accessible by screen readers.
  • Improving information and relationships such as page titles, page headings, table headers and form labels will be used on all pages
  • Improving keyboard-only navigation to quickly access buttons, forms and combo boxes using keys rather than the mouse
  • Adding bypass links, which are useful not only for screen reader users, but all keyboard-only users. Bypass navigation or ‘skip to’ links eliminate the need for excessive, time-consuming tabbing and allow keyboard users quick access to important areas on a page.
  • Adding the default language of all pages
  • Adding warning to pages where there are links that open in a new window to let the user know what to expect and informing the screen reader user to expect a new window to open or a standard alert dialog box to appear
  • Improving error handling, making sure errors are easily accessible by a screen reader user.  The user should not need to find and navigate to a specific field before they realize that there is an error.
  • Improving contrast and text size options to support users with visual impairment
  • Implementing new technology in our test player for SHL Talent Measurement tests, allowing these tests to become accessible to screen readers on SHL Online.
  • Providing support for the most commonly used screen readers, voice control software and screen magnification tools
  • Adding alternative contrast views to support high contrast or low graphical content pages

Administrator User Accessibility

  • All images will have alternative descriptions accessible by screen readers.
  • Improving use of color; no information or links on a page will be differentiated by color alone
  • Improving contrast on pages to support users with visual impairments and learning disabilities
  • Improving keyboard-only navigation to quickly access buttons and dialog boxes using keys rather than the mouse
  • All electronic forms will have labeled form controls.
  • Improving error handling, making sure errors are easily accessible by a screen reader user.  The user should not need to find and navigate to a specific field before they realize that there is an error.
  • Providing support for the most commonly used screen readers, voice control software and screen magnification tools
  • We continue to engage with our third party accessibility expert organization and they are supplying advice and testing support.