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Est.1840

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

The following issues are raised through our accessibility tracking system. They are listed together with the relevant WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria the problem fails on and when we can fix them.

PDFs and other documents

  • Some PDF do not follow a logical order (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDFs don’t contain headings (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDFs don’t contain tags (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDFs don’t have a title (WCAG 2.0 A 2.4.2)
  • Some long PDFs don’t use bookmarks to aid navigation (WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.5)
  • The first heading in a PDF isn’t always a H1 (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDF content might not be in a meaningful sequence (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.2)
  • Some PDFs might not have sufficient text contrast (WCAG 2.0 AA 1.4.3)

Response: 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 PDFs of Minutes of meetings published before September 2018.

We are in the process of amending our PDFs/converting the content to a web page when possible. All but four PDFs are now tagged, with the exception of two maps (which are out of scope for the accessibility guidelines), our 2023 prospectus and a mission statement for our student union. We aim to have completed the process by March 2024. 

We are implementing pdf accessibility training for staff to ensure that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Our “always-on” accessibility tracking will help to highlight any that are uploaded in real time so they can be amended quickly. We are investigating the use of an agency to make complex PDFs such as our annual accounts accessible.

Information and relationships between parts of a page are easy to understand

  • Some headings don’t include text (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some pages don’t contain a top-level heading (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some lists or groups of links aren’t written semantically (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some HTML isn’t in a meaningful sequence (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.2)

Response: We will work through fixes in priority order based on impact on users. Many problems have been resolved since our last review in 2022, and we aim to fix the remaining problems by March 2024 at the latest.

Make sure text is a colour which makes it easy to read 

The text on a website should be easy to read for anyone with impaired vision. You may find:

  • Text does not have sufficient contrast (WCAG 2.0 AA 1.4.3)

The majority of these issues occur on our forms and so are covered by disproportionate burden, but there is one occurrence on a webpage related to our site search which we aim to have corrected by June 2023.

Issues with navigation

We want our site to be navigable by everyone, but there are still three elements which need to be updated. These are:

  • Some links don’t explain their purpose (WCAG 2.0 A 2.4.4)
  • Pages use the same link text for different destinations (WCAG 2.0 A 2.4.4)
  • There may not be multiple ways to access some pages (WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.5)

Currently there are 247 links which need to be amended so they don't use the same text, and 132 which do not explain their purpose. We intend to have all these links amended by September 2023.

With "multiple ways to access a page", our spot-testing did not indicate that this is an issue, but as we have over 1,300 pages on our site it is included here as we were not able to test every page. Any pages we find that fit this criteria will be amended. 

Issues with assistive technology understanding our site

We've made a lot of improvements to the way our site works with assistive technology, but two issues remain:

  • Some site elements contain duplicate IDs (WCAG 2.0 A 4.1.1)
  • Some lists are not marked up correctly (WCAG 2.0 A 4.1.1)

We aim to have both of these issues resolved by March 2024.

Issues with our forms (disproportionate burden)

We know the forms on our website aren’t as accessible as we’d like them to be but have identified correcting the issues as a disproportionate burden in our accessibility statement. These are the current issues:

  • Some fieldsets don’t contain a legend (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some items with the same name inside a fieldset aren’t wrapped (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some form controls don’t have labels (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • Some labels in the document fragment don’t point to valid IDs (WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1)
  • The purposes of some form fields aren’t identified programmatically (WCAG 2.1 AA 1.3.5)
  • Some of our form pages require zooming and 2D scrolling on small screens (WCAG 2.1 AA 1.4.10)
  • Some form controls don’t contrast sufficiently with their surroundings (WCAG 2.1 AA 1.4.11)
  • Our forms don’t allow users to quickly skip to content (WCAG 2.0 A 2.4.1)
  • The frames our forms sit in don’t specify a title (WCAG 2.0 A 2.4.1)
  • The custom tabbing order doesn’t always make sense (WCAG 2.0 A 2.4.3)
  • Some controls don’t change appearance when they are selected (WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.7)
  • The language of our form pages isn’t specified (WCAG 2.0 A 3.1.1)
  • Some links on our forms may not be able to be used by screen readers (WCAG 2.0 A 4.1.2)
  • Text does not have sufficient contrast (WCAG 2.0 AA 1.4.3)

AAA standard accessibility problems

We aren’t obligated to meet AAA accessibility requirements, but have included them here so you know what to expect. Although they are not as high priority as the other issues listed here, we intend to. Our AAA issues include:

  • Aim for text to have very high contrast (WCAG 2.0 AAA 1.4.6)
  • Ensure images of text are decorative only (WCAG 2.0 AAA 1.4.9)
  • Ensure timing is not an essential part of an event or activity presented by the content (WCAG 2.0 AAA 2.2.3)
  • Ensure pages with interruptions can be postponed or suppressed by the user (WCAG 2.0 AAA 2.2.4)
  • Ensure pages with inactivity time limits do not cause data loss (WCAG 2.1 AAA 2.2.5)
  • Check pages for flashing content (WCAG 2.0 AAA 2.3.2)
  • Aim for large interactive controls (WCAG 2.1 AAA 2.5.5)
  • Ensure users can find definitions of unusual words (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.1.3)
  • Ensure users can identify the meaning of abbreviations (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.1.4)
  • Ensure content is not too difficult to understand (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.1.5)
  • Ensure links explain they open in a new tab (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.2.5)
  • Check context-sensitive help is available for forms (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.3.5)
  • Check if an error prevention mechanism is required (for all forms) (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.3.6)