Accessibility statement
This website is run by the University of Lincoln, and we want everyone using our website to have as good an experience as possible.
We have therefore applied the following accessibility standards to ensure that all users, either directly from their browser, using a plugin or assistive technology can navigate the site and access its content.
User controls
Viewing
You can change the colours and contrast levels using the default controls within your browser. You can also change the font and magnify the page to a maximum of 300% without text or links spilling off the screen.
Navigating
The web page can be navigated using keyboard controls. Links are highlighted by a change in border colour when highlighted. Use your keyboard to skip links. Users of screen readers can also get a list of all links on a page and understand their purpose from the link text. You may also use the ‘Skip to content’ button located at the top of each page.
Listening
Use text to speech browser plugins or screen reader assistive technologies to listen to any content selected using the mouse or keyboard. Screen readers can also help you to listen to the site content and navigate around it using menu items.
Devices
Advice on using different devices on websites is available on the My Way website.
How accessible is this website?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. The guidelines define three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.
We know that certain aspects of this website may prevent it from being fully accessible:
Student-created content
This site consists of content created by University of Lincoln students, including text, imagery, video and/or audio content.
All images uploaded to the Media library are accompanied by descriptive text, submitted by either the students or a team of student editors. Advice is provided to them on how best to do this. Please do notify us via wordpress@lincoln.ac.uk if you experience any issues with visual content on this site.
Image content will be uploaded as JPEG or PNG and will be accompanied by alternative text. Where posters or info-graphics have been uploaded as images, the alternative text will describe the visual nature of the poster rather than extensively detailing textual elements. Similarly, alternative text used on all images will describe what is being visually represented, not the meaning or interpretation of any artwork.
Text content is moderated by the editorial team, who are overseen by the Social Media and Blogging Intern, to ensure that it is written in plain English and can be understood by all audiences. There may however be colloquialisms and jargon used by the student team that is not understood by all users.
Video content embedded into the ‘Video post’ type is hosted on YouTube and we are dependent on the accessibility features within the embedding tools provided. We will however ensure subtitles have been included on all video content produced for this website. Any video content embedded in posts and not specifically made by the University of Lincoln Student Life team will rely on the accessibility features of the platform.
Alerts flagged in our testing
- Suspicious link text – Link text contains extraneous text or may not make sense out of context. Terms like “Read more” or “More information” have been used on buttons or links through to other pages within the site and these have been flagged as potential issues by our accessibility checker. To mitigate any potential issues where this terminology has been used, we have added an aria-label to describe the link meaning, e.g. “Click to read more about this post”.
- Redundant links – Certain pages within this site contain duplicate links to the same page. This has been done to give users viewing the site easier access to these pages. Where appropriate, an aria-label has been added to give a fuller description for these links.
- Colour contrast: The colour of the text and the colour of the background are not in sufficient contrast to each other. The use of white text and a coloured background on social media share buttons on this site results in an accessibility contrast problem, specifically the Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the base of single pages. To fix this would result in change the branding colour of the logos which would be confusing for the user and would contravene the branding guidelines of the associated companies.
What to do if you have a problem
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you encounter specific accessibility problems or issues with any of the content published on this site, please contact us via wordpress@lincoln.ac.uk to let us know and we will do everything we can to rectify them.
If you have any other feedback on the accessibility of Student Life, please contact us via the following methods:
- Phone: +44 (0)1522 882000
- E-mail: wordpress@lincoln.ac.uk
- Postal address: Digital Education & Student Life, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS
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).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The University of Lincoln is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
We aim to respond to feedback within 5 working days.
How we tested the site
This site was last tested in September 2019 by staff at the University of Lincoln using the Wave Web Accessibility tool and the AChecker tool, with the additional use of Chrome browser extensions Axe and SiteImprove.