Accessibility statement for the Warwick website
It is a University strategic priority that all staff and students must have access to equal opportunities to thrive and progress at Warwick, irrespective of background, disability, faith, gender, race and sexual orientation. Warwick is committed to developing accessible and inclusive approaches to ensure that everyone can participate in our community.
This statement applies to the Warwick website, hosted on warwick.ac.uk, and includes the postgraduate applicant portal.
Other applications and websites whose domain follows the pattern *.warwick.ac.uk will be covered by their own accessibility statements. For example, our Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) and Warwick Arts Centre.
This website is run by Warwick. 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 font sizes
- Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- Navigate using just a keyboard, with links provided to skip over the local navigation menu and get to page content quicker
- Navigate using speech recognition software
- Listen to most content using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
- View the content on a tablet or mobile device in either orientation
We aim to make the website text as simple as possible to understand. We have provided guidance to our content authors on reading level and writing in plain English.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
We support our staff and students in their use of assistive software.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- Resource booking pages are not currently navigable via keyboard alone and do not display well on small screens.
- Some Adobe PDF documents, such as digital e-resources purchased by the Library that were created before September 2018.
- Live video streams and some pre-recorded videos do not have captions.
- Some web pages include slideshows that are hard to navigate via keyboard alone, to get from slide to slide.
- There are some colour and contrast issues on older pages. To avoid further instances of this we have provided guidance to our content creators and adjusted the Warwick brand to a smaller range of accessible navigation colours.
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 email .
Note: If you cannot view the map and travel info on our site, you can get verbal directions by calling the University Reception on 024 765 23523.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility regulations, please email the accessibility team: .
When you contact us by email there is a process in place that will acknowledge your contact, tell you who is dealing with it and give you a timescale by which you can expect a reply.
If you are unhappy with the response you receive, you can make a formal complaint to Warwick using our Feedback and Complaints process.
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 Warwick is committed to making its website 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 exemptions listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Not applicable - please see the 'disproportionate burden' section below.
Disproportionate burden
We have performed an assessment of the extent to which compliance with the accessibility requirements imposes a disproportionate burden on the University. This assessment takes account of the University’s large size, limited resources, website budget, and the nature of the University as an exempt charity.
We commissioned an audit with AbilityNet using manual and automated testing on selected aspects of our website. By mid-2021, we had resolved accessibility issues in the most frequently visited 1000 pages of our website using external contract resource. We recognise that there remain pages with unresolved accessibility issues; many of these pages necessarily relate to general academic content rather than the University’s ‘front-line’ services.
We have introduced a new content editor to our website, which helps authors to ensure their content is accessible. This was released as BETA in July 2021, with full release in January 2022.
In February 2022 we secured funding to enable a new web transformation project and are in the process of hiring roles to lead the programme. The web transformation project will include a full review of the site (including the underpinning technology) and has accessibility in scope. Only accessible content will be transferred to the new site. This will be a significant, multi-year project – prioritised by the most frequently accessed content. It will address all of the issues listed below.
We determined that this approach would achieve balance between costs to the University and benefits to persons with disabilities.
In the meantime, we will address any issues raised and support our community in any way possible. This includes, where appropriate, providing accessible alternatives to documents held by the University that are not available on our website - please email .
Page text and structure
- Heading levels on some pages are used in such a way that the page structure is unclear. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels).
- The purpose of some links cannot be determined by the link text alone, or by the surrounding content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose - In Context).
- Some links do not have discernible text, for example where white space has been used for the link text in error. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
- Changes of the language used within the text of a page are not always indicated. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.2 (Language of Parts).
- Some sub-sites within this website use colours for the navigation menu and footer which do not have sufficient contrast between the text and the background. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Minimum Contrast).
Images
- Some older images are missing alternative text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
- Although we strongly discourage the practice, there are some images of text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5 (Images of Text).
- Some of these images of text do not have sufficient contrast between the text and the image, which fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Minimum Contrast).
Video and audio content
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Some pre-recorded audio and video content is not accompanied by a text alternative, captions or audio description. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria:
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDF and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may:
- Have been written in a way that is not accessible to a screen reader.
- Be missing a title attribute. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled).
Interactive tools and transactions
- Resource booking pages are not currently navigable via keyboard alone, which fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard). These pages also do not display well on small screens, which fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10 (Reflow).
- Older slideshows are hard to tab through. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.2 (No Keyboard Trap). These slideshows tend to be used to decorate web pages rather than to provide important content. We replaced instances of these slideshows on the 1000 most-visited pages and are replacing the remaining instances as part of our web transformation project, mentioned above.
Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
We do not plan to improve the accessibility of the content described below, but if you need us to provide any content on this website in an accessible format, please email .
Archived websites and intranet content
This website contains archived websites and content on intranets that was published before 23 September 2019. The archived websites are not needed for services we provide and are not updated. We do not plan to fix issues with this content because it is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. See an example archived website.
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.
Live and pre-recorded audio and video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
Pre-recorded audio and video content published before 23 September 2020 is unlikely to be accompanied by a text alternative, captions or audio description. We do not plan to add these things because this content is also exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
Interactive map
This website includes an interactive map supplied by a third party, which is unlikely to be accessible. We will review the interactive map and request accessibility changes when the next major revision of the map occurs. Alternative map formats are available.
What we're doing to improve accessibility
This is a large website, reflecting the size of the university and the range of research and education undertaken here. The content of the site is currently edited and maintained by staff in a wide array of distributed departments and services. We are continually working to improve accessibility, as outlined below.
What we've done so far
- We updated our content editor in April 2019 so that when an image is added to a page, alternative text must be provided or the image flagged as purely decorative.
- We commissioned AbilityNet to audit a selection of high-traffic pages and standard page templates used on this website in February and March 2020. We fixed all of the issues reported, except for a small number of relatively minor ones, before shifting our focus to the development of a new content editor, which promised more significant accessibility benefits.
- We added an accessibility audit tool to our content editor in March 2020 to enable automated checking of page content during editing.
- We provided accessibility guidance to our content creators. This includes information on best practice and accessible document creation, along with a checklist of the manual accessibility checks.
- We trained our digital marketing executives and developers on accessibility.
- In mid-2021 we completed a year-long accessibility remediation programme to make the top 1,000 most-viewed pages on our site accessible. These pages account for about 80% of our overall web traffic. We used a mixture of automated (Axe) and manual testing, including screen reader use, keyboard navigation and magnification to find the most common barriers to users with accessibility needs.
- We developed a new content editor, designed to help our content creators produce accessible pages. This was released in January 2022 and provides real-time, Axe-based automated accessibility checks when pages are edited. It's based on configurable components, such as layout blocks, which are themselves designed to be accessible.
What we're doing now
- We're fixing the small number of remaining issues from the AbilityNet audit mentioned above.
- We're working to convert the pages of our website to the format required by the new content editor we developed. Any accessibility issues found during this process - or any time the page is subsequently edited - are prominently displayed within the editor.
- We're in the final stages of making the results of automated accessibility checks on entire departmental websites available as reports. This will enable our content authors to focus on converting pages that have accessibility issues, fixing these issues in the process.
- When shortened versions of web addresses for specific pages on this website are requested by our content authors, we ensure any accessibility issues on these pages are fixed.
What we're planning to do
- In February 2022 we allocated funding for a web transformation project and are now recruiting people to lead it. The project will:
- Include a full review of the existing website, including the underpinning technology, and address the accessibility issues listed in the 'disproportionate burden' section above.
- Involve the removal of any content that is no longer needed, reducing the number of pages and making the website more manageable.
- Be completed over a number of years, with priority given to the most frequently accessed content.
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In the meantime, we will address any issues raised and support our community in any way possible - please email .
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 13 September 2019. It was last reviewed in June 2022.
This website was last tested in February and March 2020. The test was carried out by AbilityNet. For this test we chose:
- 12 top-level pages with high visitor numbers. These pages were chosen because they contain a broadly representative sample of the content types and functionality available elsewhere on this website.
- The page templates, such as calendar and news pages, available to our content authors within our content management system. The issues we fixed within these templates were automatically applied to all pages created from them.
Our new content editor, released in January 2022, completes automated checks on any page it is used to edit.