Website accessibility statement

We want our websites to be as open and inclusive as they can be. That means they can be used by the widest possible audience.

This accessibility statement applies to websites owned and operated by The Natural History Museum, London: 

These websites are run by The Trustees of The Natural History Museum, London. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We've also worked on making the content of our websites as simple as possible to understand. We write in plain English and explain scientific terms wherever possible. 

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

This page was last updated in July 2025.

How accessible our websites are

We know some parts of these websites are not fully accessible.

We support and test our site on the following browsers, including the current and previous two minor versions, on Windows, Android and Apple devices:

  • Microsoft Edge
  • Safari
  • Chrome

If you are using an older or different browser, or different operating system, you may find our websites have further problems than those listed below.

The main website

  • Some headings and page structures are not consistent.
  • Some pages do not have unique or descriptive link text, making it difficult to navigate links out of context.
  • Media content (audio and video) does not always have text content or audio description available as an alternative.
  • Many PDF documents, including our Museum map and café menus, cannot be read using a screen reader.
  • Watermarks used on images do not have sufficient contrast.
  • Some third-party tools we use to help provide our digital services are not fully accessible to screen reader and keyboard users, including:

Our ticketing service

  • There is a non-adjustable timeout when purchasing a ticket. This is allowed under WCAG as an essential exception. If you need additional time to book tickets, get in touch with our Contact Centre team who will be able to help.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

  • Some headings and page structures are not consistent.
  • Some pages and components aren’t fully accessible using keyboard and/or screen reader.
  • Some images are missing accessible alt-text.
  • Some interactive elements are incorrectly labelled.

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, get in touch with our Contact Centre team by calling +44 (0)20 7942 5000 (lines are open 9:00-5:00 Monday-Sunday) or emailing feedback@nhm.ac.uk. Please include as much information as you can, such as the address of the page you were visiting and content you had problems accessing.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

  • email feedback@nhm.ac.uk

  • call +44 (0)20 7942 5000

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within two working days.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Trustees of The Natural History Museum, London are committed to making our websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard. 

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to ‘the non-compliances and exemptions’ listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some pages on our Wildlife Photographer of the Year website, and many of our PDFs and other linked documents are missing text alternatives to non-decorative, non-text content, such as images. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.1.1. We are aiming to fix this on new Wildlife Photographer of the Year images and all PDFs and linked documents by the end of March 2026.

  • Some audio-only content published after September 2018, such as audio guides and podcasts, is lacking a text alternative (transcript). This fails WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.2.1. We are aiming to fix this by the end of March 2026.

  • Some of our pages, and many of our PDFs and other linked documents, lack headings or have non-sequential headings. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1. We are aiming to fix this by the end of March 2026.

  • Some images, such as those from Wildlife Photographer of the Year, include a watermark as text within the image. This watermark may not have sufficient contrast. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3. As the watermark is present to prevent copyright infringement, rather than needed information for those using the website, we won’t be changing it. Instead, where relevant, we will include the photographer’s credit in the alt-text or caption of the image so that it is accessible to all.

  • The gallery filters on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website use checkboxes that have insufficient non-text colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.11. We are aiming to fix this by end of March 2026.

  • The gallery filters on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website, as well as some of our third-party tools, such as Sketchfab (three-dimensional scans) and Interact (quizzes), cannot be navigated using a keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.1.1. We are aiming to review our use of these tools by end of March 2026.

  • Some of our links do not have a clearly defined purpose accessible to screen reader users, especially those lacking programmatically determined link context. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4. We are aiming to fix this by the end of March 2026

  • Our video player (YouTube) shows keyboard focus as a thin blue outline. When the video frame is blue, this can be invisible against the background, with insufficient contrast. The gallery filters on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website as well as some of our third-party tools, such as Sketchfab (three-dimensional scans) and Soundcloud (audio guides) also have invisible focus states. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.7. We are aiming to review our use of these tools, and fix where it is our property, by end of March 2026.

  • At a zoom of 400%, the gallery filters on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website as well as our pop-up survey tool HotJar can obscure the content behind it on the pages where it’s used. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.11. We have raised this with HotJar and are working with them to find a solution. We are aiming to fix on our property by end of March 2026.

  • The Key Dates carousel on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website does not offer a single pointer action to achieve the same outcome as dragging with a mouse or touchscreen. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.5.7. We are aiming to fix this by end of March 2026.

  • The newsletter sign-up form and the gallery filters on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website don’t provide descriptive notification of status messages for screen readers. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.3.1. We are aiming to fix this by end of March 2026.

  • Some of our interactive components have labels that don’t accurately reflect its function. The amounts on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website donation section do not communicate whether they are selected to screen readers. These fail WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2. We are aiming to fix this by end of March 2026

Disproportionate burden

Wildlife Photographer of the Year gallery

We do not have the resources to provide text alternatives to the archive of images in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year online gallery. We will apply accessible alt-text to all new WPY gallery images published from October 2025.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Pre-recorded media published before 23 September 2020 

We have not provided text transcripts or audio descriptions to help those with visual impairments understand what is happening in some of our videos and audio content. While we are working to ensure that pre-recorded media content published after 23 September 2020 has text transcripts or audio descriptions available, we are not able to implement this for all pre-recorded media already published. 

Heritage collections, such as scanned manuscripts

We have made transcripts and alternative text available where possible on our archived collections, art collections and scientific databases, but this is not available on all of our digital heritage collections. 

PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix the Spiders in your home identification guide, as it was published in 2013 and the information within it is also available on fully accessible web pages.

Any new PDFs or Microsoft documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We update our websites regularly to improve accessibility. 

What we’ve done recently

  • We've fixed the heading structure on our top 100 pages on the main website and are working on fixing issues across the wider site.

  • We've updated our buttons and links to make sure links are descriptive when standing alone for screen reader users.

What we’re working on next

  • We're making some updates to further improve the usability for screen readers on our ticketing website. This will make the timer clearer for all users.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 14 September 2020. It was last reviewed and updated on 4 July 2025. 

This website was last tested in June 2025 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

The tests were carried out by members of the Digital team at the Natural History Museum in parallel to the Government Digital Service audit over the same period. The most viewed pages were tested manually by our website team, while we also ran automated tests across the main website (nhm.ac.uk). We also worked with a third party, Hassell Inclusion, to further test high-traffic and complex areas, such as our ticketing system.

The website was last audited for accessibility in April 2025 by the Government Digital Service. 

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