Scottish Water highlight accessibility features on its website to mark National Inclusion Week

On this second day of National Inclusion week 2023, with the theme of “Take Action, Make Impact” we are delighted to highlight one action Scottish Water has taken to improve inclusion for our customers. The Recite Me website accessibility assistive toolbar went live in September 2022 on the Scottish Water website, and use of the tool continues to grow.

Fiona Templeton, Customer Excellence Hub Manager said “We know that increasing numbers of our customers go to our website in the first instance when they want to find out more about what we do and how we can help them, so it was great when we were able to invest in the Recite Me functions on our website to help make sure that our online services can be accessed and personalised by even more of our customers, when they need it most.”

The Recite Me toolbar gives online customers greater accessibility and flexibility to interact with our web pages in a way that suits them, increasing digital inclusion. Recite Me provides additional support for those with disabilities, learning difficulties, visual impairments, or people who speak English as a second language. 

Skills Development Scotland have found that at least 1 in 10 people in Scotland are neurodivergent, (a term which means an individual who may think and learn different from others). Recite Me provides fully customisable styling features and reading aids to also support neurodiverse customers.  In addition, language is also a large part of the toolbar. Polish is the most commonly spoken language in Scotland after English, (approximately 54,000 people speak Polish in Scotland). According to the 2011 Scottish census around 12% of people in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow stated they spoke other languages at home.  Recite Me gives users the flexibility to translate the text to over 100 languages, with screen text reader support for over 65 of these languages, along with other features. So far in 2023, we have had 670 unique users of the toolbar and almost 2000 web pages viewed using the toolbar. 

Recite Me helps complement our Vulnerability strategy which aims to establish core service offerings for customers who may require additional support.

You can try out the toolbar by visiting the Scottish Water website (www.scottishwater.co.uk) and selecting ‘Accessibility Toolbar’ at the top of the page.