Using this website
This website is run by the University of Brighton. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. That means you should be able to:
- 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).
You’ll also find our accessibility toolbar (accessed from any page by clicking on ‘accessibility options’ in our site header) which provides additional functions including:
- Play: To read the text aloud.
- Back: Rewind to the previous paragraph.
- Forward: Skip forward to the next paragraph.
- Decrease: Decrease the text size
- Increase: Increase the text size
- Colour: Change the background, text and link colours.
- Ruler: Enable the reading ruler.
- Font: Change the font and alter line height and character spacing.
- Margins: Change the text dimensions by narrowing the width of the text column
- Screen mask: Create a letterbox for a focused view of a section of the page.
- Dictionary: Highlight a word to find its definition.
- Text mode: Remove images and view the page in plain text.
- Download audio: Download text as an audio file.
- Magnifier: Magnify text on the screen.
- Language: Translate text into a different language.
- User guide: Will give you an overview of the Recite Me Toolbar features
We also try to make the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet is a great resource helping people with a disability to use digital technology. They provide advice on making your device easier to use.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible.
- Most older PDF and Word documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software. They can be accessed and read aloud through the Recite Me accessibility toolbar.
- We display all of our video content through YouTube, and captions can be enabled in the YouTube player. At the moment our videos are captioned automatically, so there might be some mistakes with words like Moulsecoomb (one of our campuses). We are working through them to improve the accuracy of the auto captions.
- 360 degree image and video content is not accessible to a screen reader.
- Live video streams don’t have captions.
- Maps will be difficult to navigate using just a keyboard.
- Maps may be difficult to navigate on a screen reader. We have provided text-based directions to our main sites where possible.
What to do if you cannot access parts of this website
We are working hard to make our website accessible. If you need information on this website in a different format, the Recite Me toolbar will allow you to access content in a variety of accessible formats.
If you have been unable to access the content that you need using either the website or the Recite Me toolbar, let us know through our accessibility issue form and we will do what we can to help.
Reporting accessibility issues with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of blogs.brighton.ac.uk. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please report it through our accessibility issue form.
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The University of Brighton 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 version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
- Link text use for multiple destinations. 52 instances across the site (11/10/2019), down 24 from last week. We are working through these pages and removing or changing the relevant links.
- Non-distinguishable landmarks. 9 instances across the site (11/10/2019), up 5 from last week. We are investigating how this number has been able to increase and will resolve this as soon as we can.
- Element ID is not unique. 4 instances across the site (11/10/2019), unchanged from last week. We are updating our templates to resolve this issue.
- Element not highlighted on focus. 0 instances across the site (11/10/2019), down 10 on last week. We are pleased to report that all elements on the site now have appropriate highlighting when focussed.
Issues with technology
It’s not possible for users to modify text spacing or line height by default, however this can be achieved through the use of our accessibility toolbar or by the use of standard browser features. When we redesign our site we will address this so that it is possible without the use of the accessibility toolbar.
Issues with text
Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own, for example, 'click here'. Or in some case the same link text is used to link to more than one destination.
We plan to fix the existing links by September 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure link text meets accessibility standards and that all staff publishing content have had the appropriate training to make sure that this happens.
Issues with PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards, for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.
The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents that were published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. However, all documents under the control of the University of Brighton can be accessed through our accessibility toolbar and consumed in a variety of accessible formats.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Issues with images, video and audio
Live video streams don’t have captions, however for graduation ceremonies, live signing will be shown on screen.
We don’t plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
How we test this website
This website (www.brighton.ac.uk) is tested every week using a third-party tool called Siteimprove for which we pay an annual subscription.
This tool assesses every page on our website and highlights issues and potential issues against the WGAC AA standard. It also tracks our progress in addressing issues.
Our accessibility score in Siteimprove is 99.5% (11/10/19).
It should be noted that this tool cannot interact with our accessibility toolbar and therefore reports some issues that are resolved by using the toolbar, for example reporting insufficient contrast – contrast can be changed easily through the toolbar to the user’s requirements.
Where possible we test with real users, as we know that automated tools will not pick up on all potential issues.
We have included an example of testing with real users in video format. You can also access a transcript of the user testing video.