Making mySycous accessible for everyone with Recite Me

We believe accessibility is a key part to building a website. Which is why we will be continuing to audit and update our website to meet best practice guidelines.

mySycous have teamed up with Recite Me to include an assistive technology toolbar which allows you to customise the website to make it work for you. To access the toolbar, please click the ‘Accessibility Help?’ button at the top of any page. This feature will give you access to the following tools to help you navigate the site:

Why is accessibility so important?

• One in five (20%) people in the UK have a disability
• One in ten people in the UK don’t speak English as their first language
• 15% of the UK population have a learning difficult
• 2 million people in the UK have a visual impairment
• 1 in 4 disabled adults in the UK have never used the internet
• 70% of sites in the UK are inaccessible to users with a disability

Guide to using ReciteMe

For more information on Recite Me, check out their website here. Here's our quick guide to using Recite Me on our website:

Screen Reader

Our screen reader helps people who are visually impaired or neuro-divergent to perceive and understand digital content.

Key features include:

• All content read aloud in a natural voice
• 35 different language options
• Voice speed controls
• Word by word highlighting
• Toolbar allows you to highlight any text and create an MP3 file, which downloads automatically to your computer and can be listened back to at any time offline.

Styling

Customise mySycous in a way that works for you! Recite Me supports people who are dyslexic, visually impaired or have a learning disability to change the way a website looks, so they can experience it the way it is intended.

Key features include:

• Text size, colour and font. Including Open-Dyslexic
• Website background colour
• Text only option, where all styling is stripped away. This leaves text only for your viewing, much like a document
• Link, ruler and screen mask colours

Reading support

Reading content online can be a challenge for some people. To simplify and support Recite Me provide four main tools.

Tools include:

• Plain text - All styling is stripped away, leaving text only, much like a document.
• Ruler - Read line by line with no distractions of what is below.
• Reading Mask - Mask away 90% of the website, leaving only the information you want to concentrate on, at one time.
• Magnifier - As it was in your hand, zoom in to sections of text to read more clearly.
• Margins - When in text only mode you can use the margin feature to postion content in the best place for you.
• Dictionary - Website visitors have access to a fully integrated dictionary and thesaurus.

Translation

One in ten people don’t speak English as their first language.

By using Recite Me, you can quickly and easily translate all your web content on demand into over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices.

This translation function will change everything you see on our website to your preferred language.