Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to all pages within www.wales.ac.uk.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means on most pages on our website, you should be able to:

  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts.
  •  Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen.
  •  Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard.
  •  Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software.
  •  Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of our websites and services aren’t fully accessible, and we are doing our best to fix these issues.

  • The website is not responsive, so users on mobile devices have to zoom in to read elements of the website.
  • Some images are used as text.
  • Some elements are not highlighted on focus when using a keyboard.
  • Some of the colours do not have a sufficiently high contrast ratio.
  • Some images are missing alternative text.
  • Some documents, including documents in PDF format, are not yet fully accessible.
  • Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard.
  • You cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us using the following details:

Email: web@uwtsd.ac.uk

Call: 01792 481000

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five working days

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact the Web Services team at web@uwtsd.ac.uk.

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

University of Wales is committed to making its website accessible in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 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

All the issues below will be fixed when we launch our new website in June 2023

Keyboard-only users cannot ‘skip to main content’ on all pages. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks).

Keyboard-only users cannot see highlighted elements when using the tab key to move through elements. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7 (focus visible).

Some input fields do not have a visible label indicating the purpose of the input field. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2 (Field label is not visible).

Some pages have no top-level heading on the page. A top level heading helps screen reader users and search engines to know the main topic of a page. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (No top-level heading on the page).

There are a few instances where keyboard-only users or users of assistive technology may experience an unexpected focus order when they open up hidden content or modal dialogs. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3 (focus order).

There are a few instances where keyboard-only users may not be able to access all the content. For instance, within some of the accordions, some of the content is not accessible. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (keyboard).

Some of our PDFs and other documents, which are essential for administrative processes, don’t fully meet accessibility requirements. We are working through these documents to ensure their content will be accessible or that an accessible alternative is available.

Some title elements are not marked up as headings or with the correct heading level, so some assistive technology users may not fully understand the content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships).

There are a number of parsing (coding) issues, including elements with duplicate attributes, which can affect accessibility technology. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (parsing).

Disproportionate burden

We recognise that the accessibility of our website is not perfect, and we are working hard to correct the identified issues on our current platform. We are currently (October 2022) developing a new website with an external partner, which will address those areas that cannot be amended on our current platform. Although we are not claiming it would be a disproportionate burden to ever fix these issues, we are aware that the process of establishing a new website takes time. Our anticipated date for implementation of the new site is June 2023.

The new website project is being prioritised because it will provide all users with an inclusive, widely accessible digital environment. As such, there may be some areas of non-accessibility of the current website that we cannot address or give priority to at present, as doing so would detract staff resources from the new website project. This will ultimately offer the best solution for all users encountering accessibility difficulties.

Please get in touch with us if you encounter difficulties accessing parts of our website using the email address web@uwtsd.ac.uk. We will support you in finding the information you need and consider interim fixes on a case-by-case basis.

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

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be marked up so they are accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential for active administrative processes. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Text in forms

Text within forms does not respond to text spacing. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12 (text spacing). The text styling within forms is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. This is third-party content that is neither funded nor developed by us nor under our control.

How we test this Website

We continuously test our Website, and we use a combination of methods to check our site:

  • Automated testing: we use Siteimprove, which scans our pages for accessibility errors and lets us know which ones are the highest priority to fix.
  • Manual testing: we use an accessibility checklist to manually check a representative sample of pages from across our Website. This includes checking that our pages can be navigated using only a keyboard and testing any colour contrasts that could not be automatically checked.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 14 December 2022. It was last reviewed on 16 December 2022.