Accessibility statement for Enter Finland

This accessibility statement concerns the online service EnterFinland.fi and was prepared on 21 August 2019 and updated on 22 December 2022. The online service Enter Finland is part of the online set of services provided by the Finnish Immigration Service.

The Finnish immigration service is committed to making its website accessible in accordance with the Act on the provision of digital services 306/2019. 

The accessibility assessment of the website is based on the Finnish Immigration Service’s own assessment as well as assessments made by the system vendor and an external evaluation by accessibility professionals.

State of accessibility of the website

Changes have been made to the accessibility of the following pages, which are now partly compliant with the critical accessibility requirements of levels A and AA:

General pages:

• Enter Finland – Home page (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices)
• About the service (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/employer/abouttheservices)
• Log in (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/account/login)
• My account (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/account/userprofile)
• My account – Edit (https://qa.enterfinland.fi/eServices/account/userprofileedit)
• Did you forget your password (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/account/forgotpassword)
• Create a user account using your email (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/account/register)
• Terms of use for the e-service (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/info/termsofuse)
• Cookies (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/info/cookies)
• Maintenance notification (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/maintenace?)
• Error message
• My applications (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/dashboard) (Changes made on 31 March 2021)
• New application (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/dashboard/newapplication) (Changes made on 31 March 2021)

Enter Finland for Counsels and Representatives:

• Counsel home (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/home/advisor)
• My cases – Active cases of my applicants (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/advisor/dashboard)
• My cases – Case details of my applicant (https://qa.enterfinland.fi/eServices/advisor/poaappdata)
• Notification of acting as a counsel or representative (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/poa/create)
• Document request (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/advisor/document-request-form)
• Send additional information (https://enterfinland.fi/eServices/poasupplement/opensupplement)
• Supplemental information (https://qa.enterfinland.fi/eServices/poasupplement/opensupplementreplypage)
• Frequently asked questions (https://qa.enterfinland.fi/eServices/info/advisorhelp)

The pages mentioned above have been subject to technical accessibility modifications so that they are now technically compliant with the accessibility requirements of levels A and AA. However, the pages have not yet been subject to technical modifications requiring visual modifications, or to certain stand-alone non-visual technical modifications that will be listed below.

The textual contents of the said pages have also been reviewed and revised in order to make the text explicit and comprehensive.

Contents that are not compliant with accessibility requirements

Parts of the service are not yet compliant with accessibility requirements

In the first stage of the accessibility assessment, only the pages listed under "State of accessibility of the website" have been reviewed and modified to comply with accessibility requirements.

The rest of the website, as well as documents in connection to the website will be assessed and modified to be accessible in a prioritized order as soon as practicable.

Visual shortcomings:

• In several places, the contrast between a text or an image and the background is insufficient (Success Criteria 1.4.3 Contrast [Minimum] and 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast).
• In certain places on the web pages, red and green have been used in such a way that they may not necessarily be distinguishable for a user with red-green colour blindness (Success Criterion 1.4.1 Use of Colour).
• Parts of the content such as the login screen and some action links with large amounts of text do not support user adjustments to text spacing or changing text size by 200% without some loss of information. (Success Criterion 1.4.12 Text Spacing and 1.4.4 Resize Text)

Reason for shortcomings: Modifying the colours requires more planning and more time for preparation. The planning process has been initiated. Modifying the colours is connected to the agency’s internal projects renewing the visual image and colour scheme of the agency, as well as rethinking the visual design and the website structure of the online service Enter Finland. For this reason, it was not possible to modify the colours at this stage merely to comply with accessibility requirements. The visual modifications will be made in the service as soon as it is possible.

Technical shortcomings:

The following non-visual technical modifications required have been identified, but have not yet been made:

• Action links in many parts of an application process and tooltips cannot be used with a keyboard. Additionally there are many parts of the user interface which are focusable but are not interactive. (Success Criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard)
• Text fields on the login page have placeholder text as a label, which is visible only when the fields is empty. Dropdowns for choosing a service point before submitting an application has no programmatic label. (Success Criteria 2.4.6 Information and Relationships and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value)
• After selecting "Bypass the menu and the header" on the Enter Finland Home page, the page does not indicate which section of the page is currently selected on the keyboard (Success Criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible).
  • Reason for shortcoming: Further investigation is required for correcting the issue, and for this reason the modifications required will be made later.
• If the user sends additional information or replies to a supplement request, he or she needs to use a drop-down menu to select a correct type for the attached document. However, the screen reader does not communicate to the user the attachment type selected in the menu (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships).
  • Reason for shortcoming: The current selection menus in the service are built in such a way that the issue cannot be easily corrected. To correct the issue, the menus must be modified into a different type of selection menu. Due to the extensive development work required, the modifications required will be made later.
• If the user attaches a document to his or her notification, submission of additional information or reply to a supplement request, the screen reader does not read correctly what is happening on the page. It does not communicate to the user that the attachment has been added, that it has been deleted, or that it can be opened in a new window (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships).
  • Reason for shortcoming: Correcting the issue would require an extensive amount of work and might generate new problems, and for this reason the modifications required will be made later.
•  If an error occurs while adding attachments, the online service displays an error message. Before this error message, the screen reader adds unnecessary extra information (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships).
  • Reason for shortcoming: Further investigation is required for correcting the issue, and for this reason the modifications required will be made later.
• If the user enters too much text into a text field or if the maximum length of text is about to be reached, the service does not inform the user of this (Success Criteria 3.3.1 Error Identification and 3.3.3 Error Suggestion).
  • Reason for shortcoming: Further investigation is required for correcting the issue, and for this reason the modifications required will be made later.
• The navigation on the page ‘Create a user account’ does not function properly. The page does not focus on the correct component, and the screen reader reads the content of the page partly incorrectly (Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships and 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence).
  • Reason for shortcoming: Further investigation is required for correcting the issue, and for this reason the modifications required will be made later.
• If the user starts typing text into the date fields in the service, the help text concerning the field will no longer be visible. The visual guide for date format is also not perceivable with a screen reader. (Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships and 3.3.5 Help [level AAA]).
  • Reason for shortcoming: The issue concerns the date fields, and there are plans to renew these fields altogether. The issue can be corrected in connection with these upcoming modifications.
    • The accessibility issues with the date fields have been corrected on 26 May 2021. 
• If there is a service break in the online service and the user either sends a notification of counsel or replies to a supplement request, the service does not notify the user that the notification or the reply to the request has not been sent. The service will only notify the user that a service break has started (Success Criteria 3.3.1 Error Identification and 3.3.3 Error Suggestion).
  • Reason for shortcoming: There was not enough time to correct the issue for the current version, and for this reason the modifications required will be made later.
• Form fields belonging to a group are not marked programmatically, which makes their structure harder to understand using a screen reader. (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Information and Relationships)
• The heading structure on the home page can be misleading for users with screen readers because the secondary way of logging in has no heading associated with it. (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Information and Relationships).
• Some visually communicated information is not available to users relying on screen readers, such as how much remains to be filled in for a particular section in an application and what state the application currently is in. (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Information and Relationships)
• Some close buttons for dialogs are missing a descriptive text alternative. The close buttons for notifications have very long text alternatives, which can make their purpose hard to understand. (Success Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text content)
• Some lists such as the status history of an application and the list of application that cannot be submitted online are not marked up programmatically, which makes their structure harder to understand for screen reader users. (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Information and Relationships)
• Some subheadings in the Residence permit application for an employed person have misleading instructions for screen reader users. (Success Criteria 1.3.1 Information and Relationships and 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions)
• The current page in the breadcrumb navigation (showing where a page is within the site) is highlighted visually but not programmatically. (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Information and Relationships)
• Screen reader users do not always get feedback when a visual notification is shown on screen, of significant changes in the interface, or when error messages are shown inline. (Success Criterion 4.1.3 Status Messages)
• Page titles are not unique within an application. (Success Criterion 2.4.2 Page Titled)
• The input limit displayed below some text fields is not available to screen readers. (Success Criterion 1.3.1 Information and Relationships)
• The input purpose of user-related form fields is not marked programmatically. (Success Criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose)
• When opening the main menu using a screen reader on a mobile device, focus does not automatically move to the menu. (Success Criterion 2.4.3 Focus Order)
• Currently, the user is not notified before being logged out after a period of inactivity. (WCAG 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable)

Shortcomings in content:

The content of the pages now modified has been reviewed and revised to make the language comprehensible and explicit. The texts have not been revised externally.

• Some PDF files produced by the service are not accessible to screen readers. (Success Criteria 1.3.1 Information and Relationships, 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence, 2.4.2 Page Titled, 3.1.1 Language of Page)

Conduction of the accessibility assessment

The system vendor has conducted an accessibility assessment. The accessibility assessment was conducted using the following accessibility tools and web pages:

Text-to-speech testing:

http://www.nvda-project.org/

Tool used in the accessibility check:

https://accessibilityinsights.io/en/

Web pages used as information sources in the accessibility check:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/

https://webaim.org/articles/visual/blind

https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspective-videos/speech/

http://www.perkinselearning.org/videos/webcast/accessible-technology-options-blind-and-visually-impaired-reader

https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/using-computer/part-ii-experienced-computer-user-new-1

https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

https://blog.prototypr.io/the-new-guidelines-in-wcag-2-1-explained-c26e62b196f2

https://medium.com/c2-group/wcag-2-1-guidelines-explained-with-examples-5c7c5d8b69eb

Checklist:

https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/WCAG2Checklist.pdf

Online tutorials used:

https://viewer.books24x7.com/VideoViewer.aspx?bookid=131104

https://viewer.books24x7.com/VideoViewer.aspx?bookid=131109

https://viewer.books24x7.com/VideoViewer.aspx?bookid=131114

https://www.lynda.com/Web-Design-tutorials/Accessibility-Web-Design/606090-2.html

Accessibility testing

The web pages have been tested and will be tested in future with automated accessibility testing, applying the following tools:

https://accessibilityinsights.io/en/

http://www.nvda-project.org/

https://pa11y.org/

The web pages will also receive manual accessibility testing, focusing especially on the following issues:

• Reviewing the usability of the web pages using a keyboard. (Navigating on the page is logical, and the pointer focuses on the correct components on the page.)
• Testing the functionality of the text-to-speech tool and its correct reading of the content.
• Reviewing the general structure of the web pages. (The headings and sections are correctly indicated and explicit. It is easy to navigate and move between different sections, and sections can be bypassed.)

The accessibility of the service was evaluated by an external accessibility specialist in December 2022, focusing on the residence permit for an employed person.

Feedback on accessibility

We aim to make our services accessible for as many as possible. We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our services and appreciate all feedback. If you notice any accessibility issues on the website, please first send feedback to us, i.e. the site administrator. It may take us up to 14 days to reply. If you are not satisfied with the reply or do not receive a reply at all within two weeks, you can notify the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland.

There are several ways to send feedback:

• By sending email to the Registry of the Finnish Immigration Service (migri@migri.fi) 
• By leaving feedback in a letter box at one of our service points (https://migri.fi/en/contact-information).
• By using the feedback form (migri.fi/en/feedback) on the Finnish Immigration Service website

Your feedback will be processed by the unit responsible for dealing with the issue in question. The feedback given using the form on the website is regularly monitored by the Customer Relations and Communications Unit.

Filing a complaint

You have the right to file an accessibility complaint with the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland, which is the authority responsible for overseeing compliance with the statutory accessibility requirements in Finland. 

Contact information of the regulatory authority

Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland (Etelä-Suomen aluehallintovirasto)
Accessibility control unit (Saavutettavuuden valvonnan yksikkö)

www.saavutettavuusvaatimukset.fi 

saavutettavuus@avi.fi

Telephone switchboard 0295 016 000 

Preparation and updating of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 August 2019. The statement has been updated on 26 May 2021 and 22 December 2022.