New Wembley Stadium shoots wide on website accessibility

The country’s new national stadium at Wembley might be ‘a truly iconic venue’ in the words of Lord Coe, but it stops well short of the top of the league as far as access to its new-look website is concerned, according to a report published today by AbilityNet – the national computing and disability charity. AbilityNet wrote in its report that:

www.wembleystadium.com which showcases our official national stadium, uses the latest in interactive technology, webcams and downloads to enable site visitors to find out about the history of the facility, forthcoming events and applying for tickets, as well as allowing fans to take a virtual tour of the ground.

AbilityNet’s assessment looked at both usability and accessibility with a focus on the real life challenges that disabled users experience when attempting to navigate their way around the site. In addition to a series of manual checks, the assessment included a range of tests employing the types of adaptive technologies commonly used by disabled people such as screen readers and voice recognition software. Testers also examined the ease with which the types of changes necessary to improve access for those with visual impairments, dyslexia or physical problems which make mouse-use difficult, could be effected.  

Wembley’s Disability Liaison Coordinator, Marie Head, has welcomed this independent audit in helping to fthe location itself – “one of the most accessible sporting and entertainment venues in the country.”

Lamentably, the physical accessibility of the stadium is not reflected in its website presence, which obtained only a two star rating – one star short of the basic three stars which denote a minimum standard of accessibility - meaning that it lacks many of the fundamental features allowing disabled people to use the site effectively.

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Typical problems encountered during the testing included:

Small text and poorly contrasting colours make the site inaccessible for users with a vision impairment or dyslexia. Moreover, when the end user attempts to re-size text, much of it will not oblige at all, whilst other text overlaps, partially disappears or drops to the bottom of the page.

Deaf or hard of hearing fans are not able to book tickets on-line as one might assume from a website. Only a standard telephone number is offered - which would present obvious difficulties.  No Minicom (text phone) or email alternative is offered. The same group are also not provided with subtitles to the extensive narration of the virtual tour of the new stadium.

Blind users will encounter a wide variety of difficulties using this site. The virtual tour, for example, provides no spoken or text description of what is being shown and they have to struggle with inaccessible controls on the player it uses. Many labels to images on the site, which blind users rely on as a key accessibility tool, are uninformative or unnecessary - adding a large amount of confusing 'auditory clutter'.

Visitors who have difficulties using a keyboard or mouse will find that the history of Wembley timeline facility moves so fast that only an expert ‘mouse sharpshooter’ will be able to use it - let alone keyboard users, blind users and those using voice recognition.  

At the same time the main menu of the site is unusable by the keyboard so visitors unable to operate a mouse are effectively barred from the site.

Last, but not least, the Wembley site is totally reliant on JavaScript - those mini programs embedded in a web page that add extra functionality, but which are often problematic for those users of the special technologies required by many disabled people. Without JavaScript, the main menu and search facilities cease to function.