This accessibility statement applies to the Beds SU website at www.bedssu.co.uk.
This website is run by Beds SU. We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website. For example, that means 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)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible this website is
We use the Accessibility Insights for Web assessment tool from Microsoft to test the accessibility compliance of our website. According to our most recent test, our website is 76% compliant against the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria.
Whilst our website passes a majority of the tests, the tests in which the website has failed do present a significant hurdle to some users, particularly those who navigate websites using keyboards or screen readers.
In the Technical information about this website’s accessibility section below, we have specified exactly where users with accessibility requirements may run into difficulties.
Feedback and contact information
If you experience any difficulties in accessing content on this website, please contact us and we will endeavor to assist you. Our contact information is as follows.
- email beds.su@beds.ac.uk
- call 01582 743 221
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 72 hours.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Beds SU is committed to making this website as accessible as possible, in line with the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.
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
- Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access some information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
- It is not possible to navigate some areas of the website using a keyboard. This is particularly the case on the homepage where there are some 'keyboard traps'. Users will also experience difficulty navigating our menu bar in full and are currently unable to easily skip past the links in the header.
- Some elements on our homepage have a timer component where the content changes automatically. It is not currently possible for keyboard users to stop the timer component.
- Some elements have insufficient colour contrast. We are working to improve this.
- The website does not currently define a base language.
- There are some general coding issues that may negatively affect how screen readers operate. This includes the misuse of headings, incorrectly described images and code that is not semantic.
- Some older PDF/Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
- Some of our older videos do not have subtitles.
Disproportionate burden
There are some areas of the website where ensuring full accessibility compliance would present a disproportionate burden to Beds SU. These areas are as follows:
- Content produced before 1 October 2020.
- Design elements that are baked into our current website theme and provided by our current content management system provider.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
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.
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 ensure that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
It is our intention to address and rectify the areas in which this website fails to meet accessibility standards. We will also be issuing staff with publishing rights a guide to publishing web content with modern web publishing standards in mind. This will ensure all future content is as accessible as possible.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 14 October 2020. It was last reviewed on 14 December 2020.
This website was last tested on 15 October 2020. The test was carried out by Beds SU.
The pages we have tested are:
- Homepage (14 October 2020)