Did you know that our customer policies are now available in almost 100 different languages?

ReachDeck is a toolbar available on our websites and can help if you struggle with reading, have a visual impairment or prefer to read in your own language.

It gives you the choice to experience our websites in whatever way is best for you, which includes:  

• Having pages read aloud (and even downloading these as an MP3 for listening on the go) 
• Translating our websites into up to 99 languages
• Using the screen mask which allows you to apply a colour filter to your screen to reduce visual stress
• Magnifying smaller text 
• Simplifying a webpage which removes pictures and colours allowing you to focus on the text 
• And accessing a picture dictionary to show the meanings of words through illustrations 

In the last year, this toolbar was used over 46,000 times by visitors to our Homes Plus website, and now it can be used to read our customer policies, too.  

This popular toolbar has been recently tested by a member of our Customer Partnership Panel, Leda. She said “The ‘read aloud’ feature is such an effective tool for people with dyslexia, like me.  

I like that I can select the bit that I need to hear, and even download it as an audio file to be saved for later”. 

Sharli, Customer experience officer at Housing Plus Group, is also one of the ten percent of the population believed to be dyslexic*. She said “I can find it difficult to read text on a white background. For me, the screen mask is incredibly useful as it allows me to change any page of our website to the colour that is most comfortable for me. 

“I’m proud to be part of an organisation where accessibility is important and it’s great to see that ReachDeck is now available when applying to join us, making our job application process more accessible for people with different needs”. 

Visit www.homesplus.co.uk/documents/ to find our policies and click the ‘speak’ icon to access them in any of these formats, at any time. Don’t worry though, our policies are also still available to download, for anyone who prefers to read them this way. 

You can also let us know how easy you found it to read and understand our policies.  When you are reading our policies on the Homes Plus website, in whichever format you have chosen, you will also have the option to answer a quick survey to let us know your feedback. Just look out for the ‘feedback’ pop-up on the right of the screen.  

*source Dyslexia – British Dyslexia Association (bdadyslexia.org.uk)