Website Accessibility

This website is run by the University of Edinburgh. 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 250% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • 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:

Addtional information on how to customise our website appearance

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

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:

Email:  lhsa@ed.ac.uk

Call: 0131 650 3392

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 20 working days.

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

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:

Emaillhsa@ed.ac.uk

Call: 0131 650 3392

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 20 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

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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.

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

Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place by September 2020.

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

Campus maps

It is unlikely that the map application on the website is fully accessible with all assistive technologies. However maps are currently not within the scope of the regulations.

There is a lot of additional information available in different formats including maps to download and information in the AccessAble – UoE app available for iOS and Android.

How we tested this website

This website was last manually tested in April 2020. The website was tested by the University of Edinburgh’s Deputy Disability Information Officer on a PC using Internet Explorer (11.0.9600.19236) browser and also using the automated Webaim WAVE tool. Internet Explorer was chosen as the browser due to it being the most commonly used browser by disabled people as shown in the government survey: the Government Assistive Technology Browser Survey

We tested the home page and a selection of pages throughout the site to ensure all the main features of the website were tested.

We tested:

  • Spellcheck functionality
  • Data validation
  • Scaling using different screen resolutions
  • Options to customise the interface (magnification, font, background colour etc.)
  • Keyboard navigation
  • Warning of links opening in a new tab or window
  • Information conveyed in colour or sound only
  • Flashing or scrolling text
  • Operability if Javascript is disabled
  • Use with screen reading software (eg. JAWS)
  • Assistive Software such as TextHelp Read and Write, and Zoomtext
  • Tooltips and text alternatives for any non-text content
  • Time limits

 What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We will continue to work with our in house developers to address these issues and deliver a solution or suitable workaround and correct issues directly where they are under our control.

We will carry out further accessibility testing if significant changes are made to the user interface or if a service user raises an issue. We plan to resolve the issues that are within our control by January 2021

Whilst we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues or where we are unable to, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged.

Information Services and accessibility

Information Services (IS) has further information on accessibility including assistive technology, creating accessible documents, and services IS provides for disabled users.

Assistive technology, creating accessible documents, and services IS provides for disabled users