Assessment Report | LEAP

Assessment Information
eResource Title	Vendor	Overall Grade
British Online Archives	Microform Academic Publishers	A

Key Findings

Strengths

All text and images meet contrast requirements
All images contain a textual alternative
Information is not distorted when zoomed in at 200%
Information is preserved at different screen resolutions

Images

Positioning of Images

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are the images positioned prominently and easy to find?	Always

Functional images embedded in the background

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are there functional images embedded in the background?	Always

Presence of Icons

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are there icons where appropriate, such as icons to indicate PDF Full Text, Download, Folder, Citation, etc?	Always

Alt Text

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Do informative images contain appropriate alt text or an appropriate textual alternative?	Always	There doesn't seem to be an icon that requires alt text as practically every button is an icon-text combination; The database does not use many icons to start with, and with the exception of the magnifier icon for "Search," there is always textual alternative next to it. Even the contact information uses "T" for telephone and "E" for email.	Screenshot 2024-12-13 132319.png Screenshot 2024-12-13 132416.png
Do functional images contain appropriate alt text or an appropriate textual alternative?	Always
Do images used as text contain appropriate alt text or an appropriate textual alternative?	Always	Not captured in the screenshot but the buttons in the image viewer also have alt texts.	Screenshot 2024-12-13 132542.png

Content Scaling

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
When zoomed in at 200%, is text intact, readable, and not cut off?	Always
Are images clear and unpixelated at 200%?	Always
Is horizontal scrolling minimized at 200%?	Always	This resource does not require horizontal scrolling.

Colour and Contrast

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Do text and images have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1?	Always	There are, actually, 2-3 contrast errors on each page, but when I click the icon to see which buttons, I cannot find them. The most likely culprit I can think of is the dark grey text instructions against white window to provide name and email address if one wants to subscribe to, which does not affect using primary resources.	Screenshot 2024-12-13 132542_0.png

Colour

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Do colour coded graphs have text equivalents?	Not Applicable	Resource does not contain articles using colour coded graphs.
Are blocks of content separated from one another using visual separation (such as whitespace or borders)?	Not Applicable	Resource hosts digitized historical documents and visual separation is not applicable for this type of documents.
Are text alternatives provided where colour is used to indicate an action?	Not Applicable	not applicable for this type of documents.

Text to speech

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Is there a choice embedded within the database that offers text to speech or read aloud options?	Never

Clustered Links

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Using your mouse, is the clickable area around links and buttons large enough for users to see and activate easily?	Always
Using your mouse to test links, are links and buttons far enough apart for users to accurately activate?	Always
Using any method to test links, are all links and buttons functional (i.e., not dead)?	Always
Are links or buttons accessible via keyboard navigation?	Always

Dynamic content

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Can users pause carousel movement?	Not Applicable	Carousels not found in this resource.
Is all functionality, including navigating between carousel items, operable by keyboard?	Always	All functionality operable by keyboard, although there is no carousel items found.

Liquid layout

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Is the order of the text preserved at all screen resolutions, without overlap?	Always
Do images avoid overlapping at all screen resolutions?	Always
Is the overall reading experience preserved at all screen resolutions?	Always

Key Findings

Strengths

The platform’s layout and navigation is consistent across all pages
User input fields contain labels and clear instructions to help users successfully complete the form
Page content has appropriate headers and is tagged appropriately

Labels and Instructions for Interactive Elements

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are user input fields accompanied by clear instructions on what the user needs to do to successfully complete the form?	Always
Do user input fields contain labels in addition to overall instructions mentioned above?	Always
Are descriptions for fields and boxes easy to understand?	Always
Are labels placed above the user input fields and clearly associated with each field?	Always
Are text cues for coloured form control labels available?	Always
Are other visual indicators provided consistently, such as an asterisk for required form fields?	Always

Error Prevention

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are user input fields either reversible, checked, or confirmed? One of the three is acceptable.	Always

Error Reports

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are alert messages clearly visible to the user, either at the top of the form field, inline, or through a dialog box?	Always	Users will never encounter an alert message if they access the eresource through their institution. That said, if you try to log in as an individual and use your own email or passcode, alert messages appear clearly.
Do alert messages clearly indicate the field in which the error has occurred and a description of the error and the fix?	Always
Is the user able to easily access the user input field to correct the error?	Always
Is the user able to resubmit the form and re-validate their submission?	Always	Resubmission requires 10 seconds' wait time.
Do error reports follow a logical reading and navigation order?	Always

Search function spell-check

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
When a user spells a word incorrectly, does the search function offer spelling suggestions or synonyms?	Always

Functionality of Interactive Elements

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are icons such as to save, download, or print consistent across the site?	Always
Is alternative text clear and consistent for each icon type?	Always
Are actions consistently labelled across the site? For example, the “search” button is always labeled “search”.	Always
Are icons that have adjacent links consistent?	Always
Can the purpose of each link be determined from the link text alone?	Always

Consistent Navigation

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the eresource have a consistent layout and navigation across all pages?	Always
Are search fields located in the same places throughout the website?	Always
Do other features occur in the same place throughout the website?	Always
Are links, buttons, images, and other components that are used repeatedly throughout a website labeled consistently?	Always

Pop-up windows/Interruptions

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the electronic resource avoid the use of pop-up windows which open automatically in a new tab if a user clicks on a button?	Always
Does the database avoid launching pop-up windows automatically when the database is loaded?	Always
Where pop-ups occur, are users able to postpone or suppress any pop-ups?	Not Applicable	Never came across pop-ups
Does the database avoid launching pages in a new browser window with the usual browser controls missing?	Always

Headers

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Is page content subdivided hierarchically into appropriate headings and tagged appropriately?	Always
Are headings concise and clear, and accurately reflect the content under that heading?	Always

Menus

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Do database page menus have a reasonable number of navigation items and drop-down options?	Always
Does the main navigation and drop-downs contain a reasonable number of menu items?	Always
Can all menus and submenus be accessed with screen readers and via keyboard navigation?	Always

Change of context

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the “results” page or item record view avoid opening in a new tab without a warning?	Always
Is there an "update now" button that requests a refresh of content rather than automatically updating the content?	Never
Does the database avoid automatic redirection?	Always

Change of Context: Focus

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the form refrain from submitting automatically when a component receives focus?	Always
Does the database avoid launching new windows when a component receives focus?	Always
Does the database avoid change of focus when a component receives focus?	Always
Are you able to tab through a page using keyboard navigation without the keyboard focus moving away from the control?	Always

Key Findings

Strengths

All interactive functionality works consistently for users who are navigating a site via keyboard

Navigation Links

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Can the purpose of each link be determined from the link text, or from the link text together with its surrounding context?	Always

Keyboard Navigation

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Can keyboard focus be moved to all page elements?	Always
If moving keyboard focus away from a component requires more than arrow or tab keys, is this clearly indicated on the page?	Always
Is default keyboard navigation order logical and intuitive, following the visual flow of the page as described above?	Always	Navigating through the desired page of the primary material within the viewer and zooming in might take a while to get used to.
When using a keyboard to navigate the interface, is the keyboard focus indicator visible?	Always
Does all interactive functionality work via keyboard, and does it behave consistently and as expected?	Always
Does focus order move sequentially across form fields?	Always	Focus order moves sequentially, but when moving from "Back to Documents" menu on the upper left side to the field in the upper right corner, the focus starts from "Lite Viewer" on the far right and moves right from left for the four functions there.	upper pane menu.png

Skip Links

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are there skip links (either visible or invisible)?	Always	There is one skip link for a long list of contents that, while I appreciate its existence, I don't see it is particularly helpful.
Are skip links visible or invisible?	Always	Invisible.
Are skip links (visible or invisible) positioned prominently near the beginning of the page?	Always	The skip links are always at the beginning of the page.
Are skip links labelled properly?	Always	Skip to main content
Are skip links accessible via keyboard?	Always
Do anchors (link destinations) appear at the beginning of the relevant content?	Always
Do skip navigation controls appear in the same place on every page?	Always

Tables

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the reader capture accurate information as it appears in the table and the columns and rows?	Not Applicable	The resource does not feature data presented in tabular format.

Frames

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the screen reader successfully navigate from one frame to another?	Never	The resource does not seem to be using frames. Screen reader software (i.e. NVDA) reads whichever sentence the cursor is hovering on, and every image seems to have been given detailed description, but does not read in the unit of frames.
Does each frame have a meaningful title that tells the user the purpose of the frame?	Never	As mentioned above, NVDA reads whichever sentence the cursor is placed on--even if it is in from the middle of a paragraph--or the button, but no frame title is being read.
When navigating the page using keyboard navigation, is the user able to navigate effectively from one frame to the next?	Not Applicable	Not applicable since there is no frame divisions I can identify.

Key Findings

Weaknesses

PDFs are searchable but not tagged

PDFs

Searchable PDFs

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are the sampled PDFs image-only?	Never	As the resource is a primary source repository and not a journal articles repository, you are allowed to download only a portion of the primary source at a time.
Are the sampled PDFs locked (secured)?	Never
Are the sampled PDFs fully searchable?	Always	The pdfs are digitized historical documents. As such, the texts are made searchable but the OCL function is not perfect and reads some texts wrong. Examples would be a long s (which looks like an f), and where the line/spacing is a bit off.

Tagged PDFs

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are alternative descriptions provided?	Not Applicable	Alternative text not applicable for this kind of resource.
Is primary language specified?	Never
Is reliable character encoding provided?	Always
Are all page elements tagged?	Not Applicable	Page elements not applicable for this type of resource.
Are list and table structure correct?	Not Applicable	Some of the sampled PDFs had lists and tables, but they failed the test because they are digitized historical documents, as mentioned above.

Structure: Reading Order

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the Read Out Loud function read the PDF in a logical way, preserving the order of the text and various sections?	Always
Does the Read out Loud function avoid problematic elements such as excessive blank spaces read as “blank”?	Sometimes	The quality of Read Out Loud function depends on the layout of the digitized page, which is sometimes elaborately decorated using many fonts and is not ideal for machine recognition. Sometimes it reads out every problematic elements, such as "underscore underscore underscore underscore underscore ...".
Are the controls consistent and effective for navigating through the document?	Always

Magnification

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
When zooming in to 250%, does all text, images, tables, and other elements appear clear and easy to read?	Always

Images

Positioning of Images

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are the images positioned prominently and easy to find?	Not Applicable	Digitized pages of historical documents--i.e. the position of images do not change.

Alternative Description

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Do informative images contain appropriate alt text or an appropriate textual alternative?	Not Applicable	Resource does not have articles with informative images.
Do images used as titles contain appropriate alt text or an appropriate textual alternative?	Not Applicable	Images are not used as titles.
Do rich images contain appropriate alt text or an appropriate textual alternative?	Not Applicable	Resource does not have rich images.

Tables

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are tables tagged and described with in-text summaries where appropriate?	Not Applicable	Digitized documents--evaluation not applicable.
Do table headers allow for easy navigation with screen readers?	Not Applicable	No tables; evaluation not applicable.

Additional Navigational Aids

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Does the bookmarks panel display bookmarks?	Not Applicable	PDFs created for the user-specified pages out of digitized historical documents. Pre-identified bookmarks do not exist.
Do bookmarks link to the correct sections in the document?	Not Applicable	No bookmarks for this type of documents.

Video Captions

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Are videos captioned?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
If captions are closed, and need to be turned on by the user, is that process straightforward and intuitive?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
Are captions typo-free and grammatically correct (unless slang and grammatical errors are intentionally used in the video)?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
Does caption placement avoid blocking any important visual components necessary to understand the video?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
Are the captions in sync with spoken words?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
For videos that contain captions, are transcripts provided?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
For videos that do not contain captions, are transcripts provided?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.

Described Video

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Do videos include described video, or if not, is there a text equivalent of the video provided on the same page or via a link?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.
If the video includes described video or a text equivalent of the video, is it an accurate description of the video contents?	Not Applicable	No videos included in the resource.

Audio Accessibility

Question	Answer	Notes	Images
Is a link to a text transcript provided in reasonable proximity to the audio clip?	Not Applicable	Resource does not contain audio files.
If a transcript is provided, does it accurately capture the content of the audio?	Not Applicable	Resource does not contain audio files.

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