This accessibility statement applies to the Engage – University of Westminster website (https://engage.westminster.ac.uk/students). The Business Systems Operations team, within Information Systems and Support, 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 a disability, 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
- No skip link is available for users to bypass certain blocks of content
- Pages without headings make it difficult for screen reader and keyboard users to navigate the content
- Some functional images do not have appropriate alternative text. As a result, assistive technology users might not understand the image content and purpose
- Some form fields have illogical focus order. Keyboard-only users depend on meaningful focus order
- Forms without accessible names and associated labels might cause difficulty for screen reader users to understand the purpose of the input fields
Lower priority issues
- Focus is not visible on certain elements, making the navigation unclear for keyboard users
- Poor reflow and resizing of the site when zoomed may cause issues for low vision users
- The title of some pages is not descriptive
- Text with insufficient colour contrast can be difficult to read, especially for those with low vision, poor eyesight, or colour blindness
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please visit our digital accessibility contact us page 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 page 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 website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This website is not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The non-compliances and exemptions are listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- There are functional images without alternative text. Some images on the site lack suitable alternative text (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.1.1)
- Heading levels do not follow a logical sequence. Some heading levels are skipped. Some visual headings are not marked-up semantically as such (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1)
- The colour scheme on the website does not provide sufficient contrast for some text and user interface components (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.3 and 1.4.11)
- There is some loss of content when text is resized to 200% (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4)
- Some content is not present when reflowed to 400% (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10)
- Pages lack skip links to bypass repetitive content (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1)
- There are form elements with illogical focus order. (WCAG 2.1. success criteria 2.4.3)
- Some interactive elements on the site lack a visible focus indicator for keyboard (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7)
- Some form fields do not have labels associated with the input fields (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2)
- Some interactive controls lack the correct names and roles (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 4.1.2)
If you find an issue that we have yet to identify, please contact us using one of the routes described in the ‘Reporting accessibility problems with this website’ section of this statement.
Disproportionate burden
At this time, we have not made any disproportionate burden claims.
Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulation
Extranet and intranet sites
We are reviewing the accessibility of the contents of this intranet site and plan to fix issues incrementally until this website undergoes a substantial revision. The content of extranets and intranets published before 23 September 2019 is exempt from meeting the accessibility requirements until the site undergoes a substantial revision.
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.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 24 August 2020. It was last reviewed on 11 April 2022.
This website was last tested on 24 August 2020. The test was carried out by AbilityNet. A sample of webpages was tested covering 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 Symplicity UK 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