Focused on WCAG guidelines Level AA, we executed an extensive audit to ensure the website was compliant with UK Accessibility Regulations.
Adzuna is one of the largest job search engines in the UK. Their mission, to be the best place to start looking for a job, and their market leading product and industry expertise, saw them win the contract to replace the UK government’s job search platform, Universal Jobmatch. The new service, ‘Find a job’, was developed in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and is one of the largest in government, connecting 1.2 million jobseekers with thousands of employers online and through job centres located across the country.
User needs were at the heart of the development of Find a job and extensive user research was undertaken to ensure the service met the needs of its broad spectrum of users – jobseekers, employers and members of the DWP service-management team.
Adzuna needed to ensure the new service was compliant with UK accessibility standards and the strict standards of the Government Digital Service, as well as adhering to the 2010 Equality Act and the Statutory Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Association. Before the site could go live, it also needed to pass an assurance review by the DWP and show that adequate steps had been taken to consider the accessibility of the service, ensuring it was easy to use, intuitive and enjoyable for users regardless of their access needs.
To ensure the site would pass the DWP review, Adzuna needed a test partner that could provide accessibility consultation and testing services during site development. The solution needed to meet level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a minimum and work with the most commonly used assistive technologies.
Partnering with Zoonou at an early stage in the development, Adzuna were assigned a dedicated Accessibility consultant. An initial on-site, consultancy session was delivered to Adzuna – the session covered the key areas of focus and provided findings and feedback from an initial review of the site. Defect resolution was then carried out with reference to the initial review before Zoonou’s test solution was implemented. Suggestions were also made for existing technologies that could be implemented to mitigate accessibility issues that may have caused issues at later stages of the project.
Zoonou created a test solution focused on compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to Level AA standard, including preparation and execution of WCAG based test scripts. The solution included a comprehensive WCAG audit focussing on approximately 20 templates and the delivery of a detailed test report – including top areas of concern and a pass/fail matrix categorised by WCAG level compliance. The audit focused on key user journeys and included the use of assistive technologies.
Throughout the project a number of coordinated activities took place to ensure that Adzuna and its off-site developers were supported on any issues raised by Zoonou. This included dedicated communication channels between Zoonou and Adzuna where additional feedback on the issues, demonstrations of key areas of improvement and feedback was provided on potential bug fixes before implementation by developers. Video calls were arranged with the developers to discuss and demo any assistive technology related issues to ensure they had a deeper understanding of the highlighted issue.
‘Find a job’ launched successfully having passed DWP assurance reviews and user testing. Zoonou has continued to provide feedback on issues beyond the launch date. Improvements were made across the website to allow users of assistive technologies to access the job market with ease. Further development plans for the site were also made following Zoonou’s feedback.
‘Find a job’ has gone on to win the award for Best Public Sector Project at the National Technology Awards. It has also been shortlisted for the Digital Public Service Innovation of the Year by Digital Leaders 100, Best Public Sector Digital Project at the Digital Technology Leaders Awards 2019 and Best Use of a Digital Solution at the Paperless Awards.
We have a proven track record of delivering projects on time and within budget for a wide range of public sector organisations. Our services can be purchased through the Government’s Digital Marketplace on procurement frameworks including G-Cloud and the Digital Outcomes Specialists.
“We've found the level of professionalism and quality of testing from the Zoonou team to be of the very highest standard (as I've now come to expect from Zoonou!). The team are highly skilled at what they do, organised and thorough and their collaborative and flexible approach has really helped ease through the delivery of this part of the project and ensure the best possible experience for job seekers and employers nationwide.”