Accessibility Statement for School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh (InfWeb)

Website accessibility statement inline with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018

This website (which we call Infweb) is run by the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and is on the web.inf.ed.ac.uk domain.

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

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 200% 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)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

Customising the website

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible.

AbilityNet - My computer my way

With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website to make it easier to read and navigate.

Additional information on how to customise website appearance

 

If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:

Information on accessible document conversion service - SensusAccess

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • some parts may not be fully compatible with screen readers
  • you may not be able to access all content by using the keyboard alone
  • not all media will have a transcript or be subtitled
  • some text may not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window and at certain levels of magnification
  • some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some text will include specialised and/ or technical language so will not be understandable to everyone

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille, please contact the School of Informatics communications team by emailing infcomms@ed.ac.uk or using the following address:

Informatics communications team

Room 4.36, Informatics Forum

10 Crichton Street

Edinburgh

EH8 9AB

We will consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible, which will be no more than 5 working days.

 
Email the Informatics communications team

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 please let us know using our web updates online contact form.

Web updates contact form

We will try and respond to your query as quickly as possible, which will be no longer than 5 working days.

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 please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly.

Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:

Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website

Contacting us by phone using British Sign Language

British Sign Language service

contactSCOTLAND-BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

contactSCOTLAND-BSL service details

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh 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 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

The full guidelines are available at:

 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria

  • It is not possible to use a keyboard to access all the content

  • Information is conveyed as an image of text rather than as text itself so that it's not compatible with screen readers and other assistive technology
  • Most tooltips disappear as soon as the cursor moves. Also tooltips are not always present for all icons and images.
  • There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours especially where the text size is very small.
  • Visual information to identify user interface components, such as keyboard focus, do not always have a sufficient contrast ratio
  • Not all prerecorded audio-only or video-only media will have alternative media that presents equivalent information e.g. audio track with description of the action in a video with no sound
  • Not all video will have subtitles or subtitles that identify all speakers as well as noting other significant sounds e.g. laughter
  • Not all our PDF’s and Word documents meet accessibility standards. From May 2020 onwards we are running a series of workshops and campaigns to highlight this issue and train users in how to audit and then improve the accessibility of these documents. 
  • It might not be possible for all form fields to be programmatically determined. This means that when using auto-fill functionality for forms not all fields will identify the meaning for input data accurately
  • Google reCAPTCHA causes an accessibility error due to a missing label. We have researched and explored ways to fix this but have unfortunately not found a solution. We have tested with a screen reader and different browsers and it is still possible to interact with and solve the reCAPTCHA. Also using the audio test to solve additional verification works with a screen reader. It worked especially well using the Chrome browser.
  • While we have a 'Skip to content' link on every page when new users access the website they will receive our cookie consent banner at the top of the page. This can't be skipped over as it's important to get consent for cookies to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations. We do not believe this to be an accessibility issue but it does mean that the site will fail some automated accessibility tests. Once a user has chosen their level of consent they will then be able to access the 'Skip to content' link. 

We aim to improve our websites accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. See the section below ('What we're doing to improve accessibility') on how we are improving our site accessibility. 

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.

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

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value)

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We are currently conducting an audit to assess the accessibility of our PDFs and plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages. We will also try to ensure any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards and where we find any that are not accessible we will rectify this as soon as possible.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix archive material such as news articles published before 2018.

Regulations for PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018

What we're doing to improve accessibility

  • A regular monthly central website audit using an automated service, followed by manual prioritisation of issues
  • We use a design framework (EdGEL) which is stable and has been tested for accessibility issues. This cuts down, but doesn't totally remove, the risk of web editors adding design elements that are not accessible.
  • A project is currently in place to upgrade the software that runs the University website. During this process accessibility will be one of overarching principles and priorities. Some existing accessibility issues were resolved during this development work.
  • Support, guidance and training process in place for all University staff to increase awareness of accessibility and what our responsibilities are.
  • From May 2020 onwards the University's Information Services team have been running a series of workshops and campaigns to highlight the importance of Word and PDF accessibility and train users in how to audit and then improve the accessibility of these documents. We strongly encourage all of our website editors to attend these workshops.
  • Project in 2019 - 2020 to create a website design and development framework for the University where accessibility will be a priority.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 20 July 2020. It was last reviewed on 12 August 2020.

This website was last manually tested in August 2020. The test was carried out by the School of Informatics communications team.

While the website was last tested in August 2020 there is also a monthly auditing process. Tests are carried out using a set of automated auditing tools. The testing is followed by manual prioritisation of any issues. Accessibility improvements, bug fixes and development work to fix issues will be recorded to keep a record of work completed.

Design framework

The central University of Edinburgh website, on which the School of Informatics website is based, uses a design framework we call EdGEL. This framework was built with accessibility in mind from the outset. All the page and design elements for the website are run from the framework. However a major accessibility review was carried out in May 2017. A number of accessibility issues were found and corrected at that point. There have been no major changes to the design framework since that point.