Website Accessibility
We are committed to providing online information and services accessible to all. Our website can easily be adjusted to suit your particular needs.
Accessibility Statement
This website https://www.accom.ed.ac.uk is run by department of Accommodation, Catering and Events at 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 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)
- use mobile navigation confidently, as it adheres to AA standards and uses semantic markup
- No information is conveyed, only colour or sound.
- There is no flashing, scrolling or moving text
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
https://mcmw.abilitynet.org.uk/
How accessible this website is
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
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.
Additional information on how to customise our website appearance
What to do if you cannot access parts of this website
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille: Please contact our web team.
- Email: accom.marketing@ed.ac.uk
- Call: +44 (0)131 651 2189
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
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 our web team.
- Email: accom.marketing@ed.ac.uk
- Call: +44 (0)131 651 2189
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 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, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/
The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:
Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website
Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person
If you wish to visit us, our offices can be found at:
The Reception Centre,
Pollock Halls
18 Holyrood Park Road
Edinburgh
EH16 5AY
Full accessibility guidelines to our offices can be found here
- Email: accom.marketing@ed.ac.uk
- Call: +44 (0)131 651 2189
British Sign Language service
British Sign Language Scotland 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 from 8am to 12 midnight, 7 days a week.
British Sign Language Scotland service details
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The University of Edinburgh - Accommodation, Catering and Events 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.
Non accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
The following items do not comply with the WCAG2.1 AA success criteria:
- Not all images have alt tag descriptions as of April 2021
- Not all our PDFs and Word documents meet accessibility standards
- Not all pre-recorded audio-only or video-only media will have alternative media that presents equivalent information e.g. audio track with description in a video with no sound
We aim to improve our website’s accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. We aim to resolve the majority of accessibility issues by December 2021.
Disproportionate burden
We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value)
We plan to assess the accessibility of our PDFs and plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages by December 2021. We will also try to ensure any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards and where we find any that are not accessible we will rectify this as soon as possible.
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. For example, we do not plan to fix archive material such as news articles published before 2018.
Example PDF created before September 2018.
Regulations for PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
By September 2021:
We will continue to address the accessibility issues highlighted, to deliver a solution or suitable workaround. We aim to resolve the majority of accessibility issues by December 2021.
While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, or where we are unable, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website.
- In addition specifically:
- We are looking to phase out usage of PDF files going forward where possible and replace with webpages
- Any existing or future videos will be fully subtitled and transcripts provided (including sound effects and actions)
- Continued usage of the Little Forrest, Wave and Silktide accessibility tools to ensure any future content meets accessibility regulations
- Departmental staff to attend any training provided by the University to increase departmental awareness of accessibility and what our responsibilities are
- Be part of any University wide projects to promote and improve accessibility going forward
- Complete a manual accessibility test including testing with the main forms of assistive technology
- Work towards better accessibility with our current Live Chat web chat If this is not possible, we would hope to have found a replacement by this point.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 21st April. It was last reviewed on 26th April 2021
This website was last tested in April 2021. The test was carried out by a set of automated auditing tools. We also run some of our own reports using WebAims WAVE accessibility evaluation tool, the Silktide Chrome extension and the Little Forrest Web accessibility audit tool. We plan to conduct manual testing as soon as possible, at which stage this statement will be updated.