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Accessibility standards

Figshare is committed to becoming WCAG compliant and ensuring that the platform is usable for all users. We recognise the importance of providing an inclusive experience for all users and are committed ‍Figshare is committed to becoming WCAG compliant and ensuring that the platform is usable for all users. We recognise the importance of providing an inclusive experience for all users and are committed to making continued accessibility improvements across the system until we are conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA.

We assess Figshare’s accessibility against the following conformance criteria:

Figshare has a mix of compliance levels across WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA criteria, with the fifteen criteria being ‘Supported’ and thirty criteria ‘Partially supported’. Figshare meets almost all WCAG 2.2 Level A requirements and is working to update the platform to meet a greater number of Level A and Level AA criteria. 

Figshare supports:

  • Zoom of up to 200% without problems across almost all public pages.
  • Navigation across most of the website using just a keyboard.
  • Navigation across most of the public website using speech recognition software.
  • Use of the majority public website using a screen reader. (We specifically support and test the site using the most recent versions of NVDA and VoiceOver).

There are a small number of pages that are supported by older technology and do not meet all Level A requirements. We have updates planned to the underlying technology on these pages which will allow for improved keyboard navigation, ‘reflow’, and more comprehensive programmatic labelling for screenreaders. We are also aware of some specific errors across other pages that we are working to resolve.

For more information regarding the specific compliance levels for all WCAG criteria, please contact support@figshare.com to request a copy of our recent VPAT®. We are committed to improvement across Figshare and continue to assess and update our VPAT® in line with improvements made across the site.

User generated content

The Figshare platform enables users to upload and share a wide variety of content and files. While we strive for overall accessibility, please be aware that user-generated content is not directly under our control. We are committed to empowering our users to create accessible content and are actively developing tools and resources to facilitate this.

For some advice on how to make files on Figshare as accessible as possible, this article from the University of Kent provides some useful directions. 

Updates and changes

We are dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment for all users and are continuously working to improve the accessibility of the Figshare platform. Accessibility is considered during the development of any new features and upgrades to existing pages. We also include screenreader and keyboard navigation tests as part of our standard testing process. Updates or changes to accessibility as a result of page upgrades will be reflected as we update our WCAG 2.2 VPAT®.

We welcome feedback and suggestions from our community on how we can further enhance the accessibility of Figshare. To provide feedback please email: support@figshare.com.

Last updated: 1 July 2025

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