University of Westminster Accessibility Statement for Westminster Press

Scope and ownership

This accessibility statement applies to the https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/ . The Student and Academic Services team is responsible for the digital accessibility of this website.

Using the website

This website is run by the University of Westminster. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website, which means that you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate the website using just a keyboard
• navigate the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (most well-known screen readers)

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

For more advice on making your device easier to use if you have adisability, visit the AbilityNet website.

Accessibility of the website

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible and have listed the issues according to level of impact, from high to low:

Higher priority issues

• Some images represent unique information on the page. Due to the lack of alternative text, users might miss this information
• Some pages lack a heading structure, as heading semantics are not provided. Users cannot use the headings to understand the page structure and may struggle to navigate the page content.
• There are elements with insufficient colour contrast. These elements can be difficult to read, especially for those with low vision, poor eyesight, or colour blindness.
• Some elements cannot be resized with browser settings. Users relying on browser text resize might have difficulties reading the content on the pages
• Some elements overlap when the user changes the text spacing in the browser. This may cause some users to miss important information.
• Some elements that are visually styled as lists are not marked up as such. This may make them difficult to understand when using assistive technology.
• Some interactive elements lack a visible focus indicator. Users who rely on keyboard might lose track of the navigation
• There are no error messages present for some elements. Users may not know something has gone wrong with the data they enter.
• Some pages have illogical focus order. Keyboard-only users depend on meaningful focus order.

Lower priority issues

• Some elements that are visually styled as lists are not marked up as such. This may make them difficult to understand when using assistive technology.
• The site does not appropriately reflow content when viewed at 400% zoom. As a result, low vision users might miss some information and functionality.
• Some multimedia content plays automatically. This may prove disorienting for some users.
• No skip link is available for users to bypass certain blocks of content.
• Some pages lack a descriptive page title. This may cause initial confusion over the purpose of the page.
• Some pages have non-interactive elements in the focus order. Keyboard-only users depend on meaningful focus order and may be confused by focus on elements they can't interact with.

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 visit our digital accessibility contact us webpage for information on how to request this.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We have tested a sample of pages on the website. If you find an issue we have not yet identified, you can report it to us. We’ll pass this information to the website owner who will review the issue, make sure it is included in our plan to fix issues and add it into the accessibility statement when it is next updated.

Please visit our digital accessibility contact us webpage for information on how to report an accessibility problem.

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).

Ways to contact us

You can contact us by email or phone. If you prefer to visit us in person, get in touch and we’ll advise on which teams are available to meet with you.

Information on how to contact us is available on our digital accessibility contact us webpage .

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Westminster is committed to making its websites 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’ listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

• Some images lack appropriate alternative text (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1).
• Some lists are not semantically contained in a list (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
• Some heading levels are skipped (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
• The colour scheme on the website does not provide sufficient contrastfor some text and user interface components (WCAG 2.1 criterion 1.4.3, 1.4.11).
• Text resizing is not supported across the site. Some functionality islost with text resizing. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4).
• There are problems with accessing the content across the site at 400% zoom (WCAG success criterion 1.4.10).
• Text spacing causes loss of functionality in the navigation (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12).
• Some controls are not keyboard accessible (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.1).
• Some pages contain auto-playing content that cannot be paused, stopped or hidden (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.2).
• There is no mechanism for bypassing blocks of repeated content (WCAG success criterion 2.4.1).
• Page titles are not unique (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2).
• Some non-interactive elements are in focus order (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3).
• Some interactive elements lack a visible focus indicator (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7).
• There are no custom error messages (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.1).
• Focus is moved to unexpectedly when activating a few buttons (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.2).
• Required fields are not visually identified. Some elements in theheader are missing labels. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2).
• Some elements have incorrect roles. Some links are not labelled appropriately. (WCAG success criterion 4.1.2).

Disproportionate burden

N/A

Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulation

PDFs and other documents

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.

We are working to review the PDFs and Word documents that are essential to providing our services. We’ll either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish after 23 September 2020 will meet accessibility standards.

Pre-recorded time-based media published before 23 September 2020

We do not plan to add captions to pre-recorded time-based media published before 23 September 2020 because these are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 09/08/2020. It was last reviewed on 15/07/2021.

This website was last tested on 16/07/2020. The test was carried out by AbilityNet, an external auditor who specialises in digital accessibility.

We took expert advice from AbilityNet to identify a sample of pages to test. AbilityNet selected a sample of webpages based on the potential challenges that non-accessible content would have on the core user journey of the site.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are working to address the issues identified in the ‘Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations’ section above. We will prioritise our efforts to address the issues with the highest impact on users. We are working to develop an accessibility roadmap to show how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

The University contracts with an external supplier, Ubiquity Press to provide this website. Therefore, some of these issues are not within our control to address. We will raise these issues with the supplier and work with them to find solutions, where possible. Ubiquity Press’s Accessibility Statements are available on their website .

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