OPEN STUDIO Accessibility Statement OPEN STUDIO Accessibility Statement

University of Westminster Accessibility Statement for Open Studio Westminster

Scope and ownership

This accessibility statement applies to the Open Studio Westminster website (http://www.openstudiowestminster.org/). The School of Architecture & Cities 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

  • Some functional images do not have appropriate alternative text. As a result, assistive technology users might not understand the image content and purpose.
  • Pages with illogical heading structure and skipped heading levels make it difficult for screen reader and keyboard users to understand the content structure of the page.
  • Some interactive elements are not keyboard accessible and lack the correct roles.
  • No skip link is available for users to bypass certain blocks of content.

Lower priority issues

  • Some videos do not have the required audio description or media alternative.
  • Text with insufficient colour contrast can be difficult to read, especially for those with low vision, poor eyesight, or colour blindness.
  • Lack of focus indication may cause some keyboard users difficulty when navigating the site.
  • Poor reflow and resizing of the site when zoomed may cause issues for low vision users.
  • Interactive animated elements do not have a mechanism to stop or pause their transitions making them distracting and difficult to operate.

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

  • There are functional images without alternative text. Some images on the site lack suitable alternative text (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.1.1).
  • Some videos do not have the required audio description or media alternative.  (WCAG: 1.2.2, 1.2.3).
  • Heading levels do not follow a logical sequence. Some heading levels are skipped, some visual headings are not semantically marked up as headings (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
  • The colour scheme on the website does not provide sufficient contrast for some links and images of text. (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.3 and 1.4.11).
  • Majority of text elements do not resize, some content overlaps and is truncated at 200% zoom (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4).
  • The site does not appropriately reflow content when viewed at 400% zoom (WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.10).
  • There are problems with accessing the main menu and background slider via keyboard (WCAG 2.1. success criteria 2.1.1)
  • There is no mechanism available to pause or stop animated background slider. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.2)
  • Pages lack skip links to bypass repetitive content (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1).
  • Majority of interactive elements have no visible focus indicator for keyboard (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7).
  • Some interactive controls lack the correct roles (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 1st September 2020. It was last reviewed on 15th September 2021.

This website was last tested on 15th of July 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 inaccessible 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.

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