Accessibility statement for Student Support and Wellbeing webpages

This accessibility statement applies to the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages, provided by the University of Wolverhampton.  The Student Support and Wellbeing webpages are an integral part of how students access a range of support at the University of Wolverhampton and therefore, the content is designed to be easy for everyone to find, access and use.

Getting the best from your device

We want as many people as possible to be able to use and access information on the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages.  For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change contrast levels
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of our webpages using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of our webpages using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the information on the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages using a screen reader

It is important before accessing the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages that you are aware of the settings available for your hardware, such a laptop computer or mobile devices, including smart phones or tablets.  These devices have individual accessibility settings that will help you access content, including Student Support and Wellbeing content.  Depending upon your choice of internet browser or mobile smart device operating system, there are further settings to help you access our content.  Such settings may include the ability to change colours, contrast and the size of text and images. 

You can find useful advice on making your device more easy to use by visiting AbilityNet, which provides step-by-step guides to making individual adjustments to your laptop, tablet or smart phone.  The University also provides a number of assistive software products (e.g. Virtual Magnifying Glass, ssOverlay) as part of its Apps Anywhere software repository.

We know some parts of Student Support and Wellbeing webpages are not fully accessible:

  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some navigational headings do not convey a heading style
  • some images are missing a description or alternative text
  • navigating with a keyboard may be difficult because of a chat-box window
  • navigational elements maybe difficult to distinguish due to minimal contrast
  • structural elements of the webpage may impact upon accessing content when using a screen reader.

If you need information about this website or this accessibility statement in a different format, please:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within three working days.

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages.  If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: itsupport@wlv.ac.uk

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 have contacted us about an accessibility issue relating to our online content and you are not happy with the outcome of your complaint, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

We consider digital accessibility a key part of our approach to being the University of Opportunity and we want you to be able to use our services in a way that supports a positive learning experience.

The University of Wolverhampton is committed to making its Student Support and Wellbeing webpages accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Canvas Pages are partially compliant with the  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard; the non-compliances are listed below.

Non-accessible content

Distinguishable: contrast (minimum)

Some of the Student Support and Wellbeing pages contain contrast errors for both text and navigational elements as aligned to its background.  Low contrast means that some people with visual disabilities may find the text difficult to read, especially for people with colour vision deficiency or hyperopia (farsightedness).  Contrast errors in navigational elements of the website may impact upon the ease with which to navigate to other content. 

We aim to fix this issue as part of a larger review of our digital offer.  Please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk if you find content that is hard to distinguish. 

Headings

The audit of the Student Support and Wellbeing web-based content found that some of the navigational headings did not convey a heading style, this means that for some people, accessing the content and trying to navigate the content may be more difficult, especially if using screen readers or navigating using the keyboard.

We will amend heading elements as we find them.  Please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk if you find headings that do not enable easy access to our content.

Text alternatives: non-text content

Some of the images used on the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages may not have fully descriptive explanations or alternative text; an example of where this can be found is in some of the header banners.  Not having descriptions or alternative text can impact upon the effectiveness of screen readers or other assistive devices.

Our website may hold images that are purely decorative, and these do not require descriptive or alternative text.

We will amend text alternatives as we find them.  Please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk if you find a content that does not have fully descriptive elements or alternative text.

Navigating with a keyboard

Whilst our audit found that most of the Student Support and Wellbeing services website had a logical structure that could aid navigation, it also found that some navigation features such as left-right across-screen navigation was inaccessible and that this might hide some of the content causing an accessibility issue.  It was also found that when trying to navigate whilst tabbing through the sites, it may not be easy to identify your position on the page, nor can the fields within the Student Support and Wellbeing Contact Form be selected using the tab key.

We aim to fix this issue as part of a larger review of our digital offer.  Please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk if you find a content that does not allow you to navigate with your keyboard.

Navigation dead ends

Using the tab feature to complete the Student Support and Wellbeing Contact form can cause a navigational error, where the cursor jumps to the generic website options instead of the target submit button; during this process, the webpage content does not follow and the user could become lost.

We aim to fix navigation dead ends as we find them.  Please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk if you find a dead end that does not allow you to navigate as you need to.

Structure

Our audit found that at times, the html coded the structure of the website in a way that was not the most suitable for style it was trying to convey.  A good example of this is that the html tag <DIV> was used to set the boundaries for a list, which normally would have the tag <ol>.  This means that for people who rely on these tags to navigate the website, there may be content that is not easy to navigate.  It may be difficult to know where you are on the Student Support and Wellbeing Contact Form, especially considering the ‘submit’ button.

We aim to fix this issue as part of a larger review of our digital offer.  Please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk if you find content that you feel does not follow a logical structure.  

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.  Some of the Student Support and Wellbeing webpages may contain such content.  If you are having problems accessing this information, please consider visiting AbilityNet where you can find useful advice on making your device more easy to use.  Please contact us if you are unable to access this information.

Third party content

The Student Support and Wellbeing pages link to other resources that are third-party products, that may also contain third-party content that we are not able to control or develop and therefore have no responsibility for.  If you find any of our Student Support or Wellbeing content hard to access, then please contact itsupport@wlv.ac.uk

Examples of third-party content that may be found within the Student Support and Wellbeing pages include, but are not limited to:

  • links to external sites not owned, managed or maintained by the University
  • other software products such as Brainscape’, ‘Wunderlist’ and ‘Simplemind’.

For any of the third party products that you may issues with accessing, you may be able to find accessibility statements in searchBOX.  This is a free, comprehensive directory created by textbox to support accessible content.  The University is not affiliated with searchBOX and is not responsible for its content.

This statement was prepared on 16 September 2020.  It was last reviewed on 11 September 2020.

The Student Support and Wellbeing webpages were last tested on 28th August 2020.  The test was carried out by members of staff within the Student Support and Wellbeing Team at the University of Wolverhampton within the period 11th-28th August 2020.  We audited a range of Student Support webpages that reflect the breadth of access that students and staff will normally make at the University of Wolverhampton when seeking support or guidance.