Accessibility Statement

Our commitment and legal obligations

This Accessibility Statement is provided by University of the Arts London and its subsidiaries in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and the Equality Act 2010.

WordPress

myblog is University of the Arts London and its subsidiaries’s blogging platform. myblog uses Wordpess.com an open source platform built and developed by Automatic, a distributed company working in over 72 countries.

WordPress.com’s goal is to be fully accessible and usable for all users regardless of ability and they are updating and writing new code in accordance with the WCAG 2.1 guidelines.

University of the Arts London (UAL) and its subsidiaries aim to ensure that teaching, learning and assessment resources built in and/or uploaded to myblog are fully accessible to all users.

Using myblog

The following sections highlight the main accessibility features that you should be able to use in myblog.

Navigate myblog and its content using your preferred method

You can zoom into pages up to 200% without the text spilling off the screen.

Navigation using Headings

myblog has an inbuilt headings structure that should enable screen readers and other assistive technologies to list and navigate to headings and sub-headings.

Navigation by Links

myblog has many in-built links that are used for navigation purposes. These have meaningful names indicating their purpose and destination. Users of assistive technology such as screen readers should be able list all the links on a page and understand their purpose from the link text.

Navigation by Keyboard

myblog has been designed to enable navigation around most of the site using just a keyboard.

Listen to content using your preferred technology

Text-to-speech

Users should be able to listen to content selected with the mouse or keyboard using text to speech browser plugins or other assistive technologies.

Screen readers

Users should be able to listen to and navigate around myblog using a screen reader. WordPress.com tests using NVDA Screen Reader (Windows), JAWS Screen Reader (Windows), and VoiceOver, (Mac OS X)

Using your preferred assistive technology

The My Computer My Way guide provided by AbilityNethas advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Accessibility of myblog

This website is not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The non-accessible sections are listed below.

System Level Issues

myblog is a complex platform with customised and bespoke parts. Its code is always evolving. From time to time, new modules (e.g. plugins, code patches) are added to the system and others are removed.

The WordPress.com development community maintains a detailed list of known accessibility bugs and issues and issues with the WordPress system. This is subject to continuous change and updates and we will regularly update this accessibility statement to include up to date information.

Content Level issues

Content and resources hosted on myblog have been added by our user community made up of thousands of staff and students. As such the accessibility of content will vary between blog sites. Although our aim is for teaching, learning and assessment resources built in and/or uploaded to myblog to be fully accessible to all users, it is not possible to guarantee this.

You may find that you access third party content and resources that reside outside of myblog. These may be hosted or supported by the University, or may be third party services or websites. Consequently, it is impossible to say with 100% confidence that every part of UAL’s myblog is accessible. In this respect, accessibility is not a state, it is a process of continuous improvement in response to our users and the wider technical environment.

We do know that some parts of this website are not fully accessible, but we are working very hard to improve things. At the time the writing, we consider that the following system and content issues are of greatest impact.

Navigating myblog and its content

Navigation by Headings

Missing headings in some myblog created content impacts upon the navigability for screen reader users.

Navigation by Links

Some links in myblog created content have been inadequately named (e.g. click here).

Navigation by Keyboard

Some myblog areas have been set up using layouts that contain hidden and collapsed content. The hidden and collapsed content cannot be searched from the main page in which they are located. Users need to navigate to specific sections to be able to search for specific content. Although this content is accessible, keyboard only navigation requires additional steps to reach and search the hidden and collapsed content.

Listening to content

  • Some images and audio video materials have not been provided with meaningful “alt” text and are not perceivable to assistive technologies.
  • Some audio and video materials do not have text based closed captions or transcripts

Issues with Text

  • Some content created with other tools (e.g. MS Word docs, MS PowerPoint slides, PDF docs) and subsequently uploaded to myblog are poorly formatted for accessibility purposes and are difficult to access and utilise using assistive technologies
  • Some hyperlink text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’)
  • Some resources/files uploaded to myblog areas do not have meaningful names to aid navigation and discovery of content (e.g. PowerPoints simply named “Slides.ppt” providing no indication of the topic or information covered).

Archived/legacy myblog areas and content

The Accessibility Regulations don’t require us to fix myblog area content including Word, PowerPoint and PDF, documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. Consequently, we will not retrospectively fix accessibility issues as a matter of course. We will address specific issues on request.

We will focus our efforts on ensuring that myblog and new content, created in and uploaded to it, is as accessible as possible going forward.

How we tested this website

At the time of writing UAL myblog has not been independently tested for accessibility.

Accessibility information included in this statement has been draw from:

What we are doing to improve accessibility

Issues will be addressed through a combination of provision of enhanced guidance, staff training, provision of and increased use of accessibility checklists and audits of myblog areas.

What to do if you can’t 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 you should contact your course tutor or create a request using MySupport and we will pass your request onto the relevant team.

Issues and complaints

To report an issue with myblog or to make a complaint, please also raise a request using MySupport.

Your message will be forwarded to the relevant team who will get back to you as soon as possible.

We aim to provide you with an initial response within 2 working days and will provide clear information about how we will deal with your enquiry.

If you feel we have not answered your complaint satisfactorily, please contact us again by replying to the created call in MySupport. We will escalate your complaint to David White, Head of Digital Learning, who will work with the team who provides the service/content to get you a response.

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).

This statement was prepared on 27th August 2019. It was last updated on 5th October 2020.

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