Careers Home
Primary user task: A prospective applicant, care assistant, nurse, hospitality role, wants to understand what working at Care UK is like and find a job to apply for.
~5 phone-screens of scrolling could be reclaimed on this page if these findings are addressed.
Careers audience landing. Six near-identical signpost panels stack vertically, about 700 pixels each. The page is essentially a list of links to other pages, each wrapped in a lot of decorative framing.
The careers template is more disciplined than the care-home template, no jarring inverse panels, lighter signposts. The dominant pattern here is the signpost panel, six of them stacked vertically with each one essentially functioning as a link to another page. The framing-to-content ratio is the headline issue, more than overt density.
Page-specific findings
F4.1 High density 3 Page operates as a signpost hub but each signpost panel is heavy
The page operates as a signpost hub, six panels each pointing the user to another page (Explore our roles, Why join Care UK, Rewards & benefits, Learning & development, Explore the roles we offer, Our recruitment process). That signposting pattern is right for a careers landing page; the user is here to figure out which doorway to walk through. The issue is the weight of each signpost. Every panel carries a heading, a 3-paragraph body, a READ MORE link and an image, and (verified from heading positions) runs around 500–700 px per panel, with one outlier at roughly 2,500 px because it includes a video card. So each signpost is doing two jobs at once, signposting *and* summarising the destination content, and the user has to scroll through substantial content per signpost just to identify which one they want to click.
F4.3 Medium density 1 Welcome body is 4 paragraphs without a body-lg lead
~600 px of unstructured prose. Same shape as F1.1, opening positioning statement gets no extra typographic weight, all paragraphs equal, hard to scan.
F4.4 Medium density 1 Awards carousel with 49 slides + cloned slides for infinite loop
Horizontal scroll with 49 awards on auto-advance. The carousel container takes ~350 px; the user can swipe forever. 49 awards is a lot to swipe through on mobile, engagement past the first 3-5 is unlikely.
F4.7 Low typography Microsoft Word HTML residue in body content
Class signature analysis flags `SCXW18079385`, `BCX0`, `NormalTextRun`, auto-generated classes from Microsoft Word's HTML output, indicating content was pasted directly from Word into the CMS without cleanup. Word residue can carry inline styles (font-family overrides, fixed sizes) that subtly conflict with the design system.
F4.2 Medium navigation 1 Hero CTA "FIND A JOB" is undersized and white-on-image
The page's entire reason for existing is to drive job applications. The primary CTA in the hero is a small white-on-image outline button competing for visibility against the busy hero image behind it. We don't have a touch-target violation logged for this button (it appears to pass the 44 px minimum), but it reads visually weak relative to the page's intent.
Cross-page findings that apply here
These are component-level findings catalogued in the Cross-page findings view. Each is observed on multiple pages, so they're worth highlighting separately from page-specific issues.
C-ALIGN.1 High layout P01P02P03P04P05P06 3 Section components sit with inconsistent alignment to the page edges, breaking visual flow
Across the audit, several different section components on the same page render with mismatched left and right page margins. Some sit flush to the left edge with a wider right gutter; others reverse it; some sit roughly centred but with their inner content offset. On a mobile viewport where horizontal space is already at a premium, the result is a page that reads as misaligned. Each section starts at a slightly different horizontal position, the vertical rhythm down the page breaks, and the side with exaggerated padding wastes content area. Beyond the wasted space, the inconsistency carries a cognitive cost. Each new section asks the eye to re-anchor on a different horizontal axis. The user is constantly recalibrating where content begins and ends, which interrupts the natural top-to-bottom reading flow and adds friction to scanning the page. On a long page (the Care Home Detail page is 27 phone-screens deep), that friction compounds. The pattern is observable on the Care Home Detail page across the purple intro panels, the lighter-grey content cards, the Feature text panels (variants A and B), Care at our home, Reviews & Ratings, and the Nearby homes block. It carries over to the listing, promo-landing and careers templates, which inherit the same section components.
C-CHAT.1 High layout P01P02P03P04P05P06 2 Two persistent bottom-anchored widgets compound on every screen
Two competing always-on bottom widgets reduce the effective scrollable viewport by ~80–200 logical px on every screen of content the user reads. WCAG 2.4.11 (Focus Not Obscured), content under a persistent widget cannot be focused without scrolling around it. Per page: - P01, Olark chat icon + Recently Viewed (2 widgets) - P02–P03, Recently Viewed only - P04, Recruiting Assistant + Recently Viewed (2 widgets) - P05–P06, Recently Viewed only
C-CAROUSEL.1 High touch P01P04 3 Slick.js pagination dots are 20×20 px (sub WCAG AA touch minimum)
The dots are 20×20 logical px, below the WCAG 2.5.8 AA minimum of 24×24 px. They are the primary affordance for paginating image carousels on mobile, where swipe is the alternative but discoverability of swipe vs the dots is mixed.
C-IMG.1 High layout P00P01P02P03P04P05P06 2 71% of images across the audit are missing width / height / aspect-ratio
Images without explicit dimensions cause **layout shift** as they load, content jumps as the browser reserves space. This produces a poor Core Web Vitals CLS score (a Google ranking signal) and a janky perceived performance. The brief explicitly calls this out. Per page: - P00: 21 / 72 (29%) - P01: 242 / 297 (81%) - P02: 13 / 15 (87%) - P03: 10 / 12 (83%) - P04: 18 / 69 (26%) - P05: 3 / 5 (60%) - P06: 104 / 106 (98%)
C-FONT.1 Medium typography P00P01P02P03P04P05P06 11–14 px text used in 100+ places site-wide
WCAG and iOS HIG both recommend ≥ 16 px for body text. 11–12 px text is below that floor; 14 px is borderline (acceptable for footnotes / captions, not body copy). P01 alone has 39 elements at 11 px, 38 at 12 px, 99 at 14 px.
C-NAV.1 Low density P00P01P02P03P04P05P06 2 Top utility tab bar consumes ~50 logical px on every page
The three audience tabs (CAREERS / CARE HOMES / CUSTOMERS) sit at the very top of every page, they're a Care UK Group navigation (sister-site switcher) but consume permanent vertical space on a small viewport.
C-FOOTER.1 Low touch P00P01P02P03P04P05P06 Eight footer navigation links sit below the WCAG AA tap minimum on every page
Eight footer links measure 19 px tall on every audited page: About Care UK, Press & media, Feedback & complaints, Careers at Care UK, Legal & regulatory information, Privacy policies, Cookies policy, Web Accessibility. The WCAG 2.5.8 AA minimum is 24×24 px. These don't qualify for the inline-text exception in 2.5.8, since each link is its own row in a stacked footer navigation list, not a phrase inside a sentence. They are explicit navigation controls.
Potential ways forward
Observations on patterns that could improve the issues above. These are possibilities worth exploring, not committed solutions, the audit's deliverable is the diagnosis.
Lighter signposts
The page already operates as a signpost page (six panels each pointing to another page). The signposts are heavy, around 700 pixels each. Lighter signposts (small image, heading, one line of context, clear CTA) would let the user scan all six in a few screens rather than scroll through them.
Hero CTA hierarchy
The page's primary action (find a job) is currently a small white outline button on a busy hero image. Strengthening that CTA makes the signpost intent of the page clearer and supports the broader button-hierarchy theme.