Accessibility

Last updated 6 August 2026

We want to make sure everyone is able to use our website and digital experiences. The Arthritis UK website and Arthritis Virtual Assistant (AVA) are actively checked against WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards to ensure that are continuously evolving digital offering is meeting user needs.

Customise your experience

We try to ensure we are meeting your digital needs. However, you may wish to further customise the website. Individual adjustments to your desktop, laptop, mobile or tablet can make the website easer to use.

Customisable features include text size, colour contrasts and keyboard control. Read AbilityNet’s My Computer My Way guide to find out more about how to do this.

Translating the website

The website uses a translation tool by GTranslate to help make our content available in multiple languages.

Translations are machine generated. While we aim to provide accurate and helpful translations, automated translations may not always be accurate, or reflect the intended meaning of the original content.

The English version of this website is the authoritative version. If you are unsure about any information or believe a translation contains an error, please refer to the English version or contact us for clarification.

Website accessibility

In early 2026, we carried out an internal accessibility audit of the Arthritis UK website to assess ongoing compliance and identify areas for improvement. The audit combined manual and automated testing across the website’s core landing pages. Testing was conducted on Chrome (version 146) on both mobile and desktop devices. Automated checks were performed using Lighthouse and Silktide, alongside manual testing using Silktide’s accessibility tools.

A total of 8 accessibility issues were identified where the website did not fully meet WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA criteria. The following issues have since been resolved:

  • Repeated link names were used in some places, making it difficult for screen reader users to distinguish between links that lead to different destinations.
  • Hero images were missing alt text, resulting in screen readers not being able to communicate the context of core images. 

The remaining issues identified during the audit are actively being addressed as part of our ongoing website optimisation work.

Arthritis Virtual Assistant accessibility

In 2021, we undertook an accessibility audit of the Arthritis Virtual Assistant (AVA). Our external specialists used automated testing tools and manual expert testing to look at the accessibility across the tool. We tested against the following environments:

  • Chrome 89 - JAWS (desktop screen reader)
  • Firefox 86 - NVDA (desktop screen reader)
  • Safari 13 - macOS VoiceOver (desktop screen reader)
  • Safari 13- iOS VoiceOver (mobile screen reader)
  • Chrome 88 - TalkBack (mobile screen reader)
  • Windows Magnifier (screen magnifier)
  • Internet Explorer 11 – Dragon Naturally Speaking (speech recognition)

Third party functionality and external links

Sometimes on our website, we’ll use third party sited to perform certain tasks that we can’t do ourselves. Wherever possible we work with third parties to ensure that the service they provide achieves WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Arthritis UK is not responsible for the content or accessibility issues of external sites and applications.

Known issues that we are unable to fix:

  • 400% zoom across pop-up modules on the website.
  • iFrames on AVA cannot be bypassed.

How to report accessibility issues

If you experience any issues related to the accessibility of our website, AVA, or any other Arthritis UK digital platforms, please contact us.