We may receive queries from customers concerning the accessibility of our services for people with disabilities which are estimated to affect one in five people globally. We have a moral and, in some jurisdictions, a legal obligation to ensure we have made reasonable provisions in these circumstances and it is therefore important that the right people within the business are informed about these queries.
It's not always obvious when something is an accessibility request, because sometimes customers use words or language that doesn't explicitly say 'accessibility' and sometimes when customers say ‘accessibility’ they don't mean it in the way we do, so the list of keywords below has been put together to help agents identify potential accessibility queries.
- Accessibility barrier / accessible version
- Alt text / alternative text / text alternatives
- Assistive technology
- Audio description
- Blind / partially sighted / low vision
- Captions / subtitles / transcript / audio transcription / speech-to-text
- Contrast / text contrast
- Deaf / Hard of hearing
- Disability / disabilities/ disabled
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking / Dragon / Dragon by Nuance
- Flashing content / flashing image / flashing video / epileptic / epilepsy / seizure / seizures
- Keyboard focus
- Keyboard operation / keyboard navigation
- Magnifier
- NVDA / JAWS / VoiceOver / Narrator / TalkBack
- Reasonable adjustments / reasonable accommodations
- Screen reader / screenreader
- Speech command / speech input / speech recognition / voice input / voice recognition
- Text resizing / resize text
- Unlabelled PDF / untagged PDF / Inaccessible PDF / non-accessible PDF
- Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
Queries should be routed to the most appropriate team in line with existing processes (Production, Editorial, etc.), but the following steps should also be taken as appropriate.
- Add the "accessibility" tag to any ticket which contains an accessibility related query or concern. This will help us report on the volume of queries we receive as well as being able to review common themes.
- If the issue relates to the accessibility of any of our online platforms, please copy the Accessbility Enablement Team: AccessibilityEnablement@springernature.com when routing the query to the relevant team internally, so they can assess any potential adjustments which need to be made to our websites.
- If the query relates to a book accessibility request, please copy Francine.McNeill@springernature.com who works in the Quality Assurance department and is keeping track of the number of requests received across the business.
- If a customer asks for a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template), please direct them to our support article Website accessibility for people with disabilities, which links out to our VPATs and Accessibility Statements for Nature, Springer Nature Link, and BioMed Central. We do not offer VPATs for products that are not owned by Springer Nature. If a user asks for a VPAT for a product that we do not own, please research to find out what company they are owned by, and direct the user to contact that company for their VPAT.
- Any major customer complaints regarding our websites which might lead to legal issues, e.g. websites not useable for users with visual impairments, should be forwarded to the Legal department: cosec@springernature.com with 3rdlevelsupport@springernature.com in copy.