WBN Accessibility Statement™

Inclusive design at WBN means building accessibility into our products from the beginning — not retrofitting it once a platform is already built. It means testing our platforms with real users, including people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice control, and switch devices. It means making decisions at every stage of product development — from information architecture to colour palette to interactive elements — with accessibility as a genuine design requirement rather than an afterthought.

We recognise that inclusive design benefits not just users with disabilities but the entire user base. Clear navigation, legible typography, consistent structure, and logical content hierarchy make a platform better for everyone — not just for those who need it most. Accessibility and good design are not in tension; they reinforce each other.

WBN produces journalism, business intelligence, and analytical content that has real value for the people who use it. We believe that access to that value should not depend on whether someone uses a mouse, whether they can see colours at full contrast, whether they navigate the web by keyboard rather than pointer, or whether they rely on a screen reader to convert visual content into audio. Equal access is not a courtesy — it is a right that our design and technology choices either support or undermine.

WBN is committed to identifying and removing accessibility barriers across its platforms on an ongoing basis. We know we do not yet meet every accessibility standard we aspire to, and we say so honestly in this statement. Where barriers exist, we are working to remove them. Where we discover new barriers — through our own testing, through user feedback, or through changes in platform technology — we add them to our accessibility improvement work and address them as quickly as our resources allow.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), provide the most widely adopted framework for accessible digital content. WCAG is organised around four core principles — that web content should be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust — and provides specific success criteria at different levels of conformance (Level A, AA, and AAA).

WBN's goal is to work progressively toward meaningful conformance with WCAG 2.1 at Level AA across our platforms. We do not claim full conformance at this time — we are at different stages of accessibility maturity across different products — but WCAG 2.1 AA represents the standard we are actively working toward and using to guide our improvement efforts.

In practical terms, our accessibility approach means we aim to ensure that our platforms can be used by people who cannot see a screen, people who cannot use a mouse, people who have difficulty distinguishing certain colours, people who need more time to complete tasks, people who process information differently, and people using older or less capable devices. These are not edge cases — they represent a significant and varied portion of any real-world digital audience.

• Improved search and discovery. AI-powered search can help users find relevant content more quickly and accurately — reducing the cognitive load of navigating large content libraries and surfaces that are most relevant to each individual user's needs.
• Content summaries. AI-generated summaries of complex or lengthy articles and intelligence reports can make content more accessible to users who find extended reading difficult — whether due to cognitive differences, time constraints, or language barriers.
• Language assistance. AI-powered translation and language tools can extend access to WBN's content across language communities, reducing the barrier of English-language-first publishing for readers whose primary language differs.
• Auto-captioning and transcription. AI tools increasingly support automatic captioning of video content and transcription of audio — capabilities we are working to integrate more broadly across WBN's multimedia output.
• Personalised navigation. AI personalisation may allow users to configure their experience on WBN platforms in ways that suit their individual needs — including text size preferences, content format preferences, and notification settings.

AI is a tool, not a solution. The accessibility gains that AI can deliver depend entirely on how it is designed, implemented, and governed. An AI summary that misrepresents an article's content is not an accessibility improvement — it is a different kind of barrier. An automated caption that is inaccurate creates confusion rather than access.

WBN's approach to AI and accessibility is grounded in the same principles of human oversight and quality assurance that govern our AI use more broadly. AI-assisted accessibility features are reviewed for accuracy and effectiveness before deployment and monitored on an ongoing basis. Human-centred design remains the foundation — AI augments it.

• Multimedia captions and transcripts. We do not yet provide captions or transcripts for all video and audio content published on our platforms. We are expanding this capability progressively, with priority given to our most-accessed content.
• Legacy content. Older articles and content published before our current accessibility standards were in place may not fully meet our current goals — particularly with respect to image alt text, heading structure, and document formatting. We review and update high-traffic legacy content as resources allow.
• Third-party embedded content. Interactive content, visualisations, and embedded tools produced by third parties may have accessibility limitations that are outside WBN's direct control. We address this in Section 7.
• Complex data visualisations. Intelligence dashboards and data-rich visualisations are inherently challenging to make fully accessible. We are working to provide text-based alternatives and accessible data summaries alongside visual representations.

WBN evaluates its platforms for accessibility on a regular basis — through both internal reviews and periodic assessments. Where our evaluation identifies gaps against our goals, we prioritise remediation based on the severity of the barrier, the volume of users affected, and the technical complexity of the fix. We do not treat accessibility improvements as optional enhancements — they are part of our normal product development cycle.

We also actively seek user feedback as part of our improvement process. Users who report an accessibility barrier they have encountered are providing us with the most direct and useful information we can receive. We take all such reports seriously. See Section 8 for how to reach us.

If you have experienced an accessibility barrier on a WBN platform, have a suggestion for how we could improve our accessibility, or need assistance accessing content in a different format, please contact our accessibility team at accessibility@wbnn.news.

When reporting a barrier, it is helpful — though not required — to include the URL or name of the platform or page where you encountered the issue, a description of what you were trying to do and what happened instead, the assistive technology or browser you were using if relevant, and any other context that might help us understand and reproduce the issue. We aim to acknowledge all accessibility reports within two business days and to respond with a substantive update within ten business days.

If you need access to specific WBN content in a format that our platforms do not currently provide — for example, a text transcript of a video, a plain-text version of a document, or a more accessible format of a data visualisation — please contact us at accessibility@wbnn.news and we will do our best to assist. We cannot guarantee that every alternative format request can be fulfilled for every piece of content, but we will respond honestly and explore what is possible.