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Accessibility statement

Newcastle University is committed to providing a website that is accessible to all users. Content on our website is designed so that it is easy to find, read, understand, and interact with.

We aim to achieve the recommended government standard for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and follow general principles of usability, which should help all visitors to our websites.

This accessibility statement covers this website (www.ncl.ac.uk) and applies to:

This website is managed by Newcastle University, 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 200% 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)

Further information and support

If you need to make text size or colour changes, W3C have advice on helping you do this

AbilityNet also has guidance on making your device easier to use if you have a disability

Third party content

Our website may contain links to third-party content. Newcastle University is not responsible for the accessibility of this content. We are committed to working with partners to ensure materials they are responsible for:

  • meet accessibility standards where possible
  • have their own accessibility statements

How accessible is this website

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • some of the text may not have sufficent contrast

Feedback and contact information

We’re committed to improving the accessibility of this website. You can contact us if you:

  • find any problems not listed on this page
  • think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements
  • need information on this website in a different format e.g. accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille

We’ll review and respond to your request and get back to you in five working days.

Accessibility Feedback and Content Request Form 

Or you can speak to us directly using information found on our contact us page.

Enforcement procedures

If you feel your issue hasn’t been sufficiently addressed, you can raise a concern or make a complaint by completing our accessibility feedback form.

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).

Non-accessible Content

Newcastle University is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility regulations 2018. Further information can be found on our Central Digital and Data Office Digital Accessibility guidance.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Issues with text and headings

  • some pages may not contain a top-level heading (WCAG A 1.3.1)
  • some of text may not have sufficient contrast (WCAG AA 1.4.3)
  • not all our pages have titles (WCAG A 2.4.2)
  • some text may not be simplified and difficult to understand (WCAG AAA 3.1.5)

We will correct this as we review each page and as part of a review of our templates to be completed 2024.

Issues with links and buttons (controls)

  • some links may not be distinguished by more than just colour (WCAG 1.4.1)
  • some links may not be used by screen readers (WCAG A 4.12)
  • some links may not clearly explain their purpose (WCAG A 2.4.4)
  • some link and buttons do not show they have been selected by the keyboard (WCAG AA 2.4.7) this issue will be resolved by 09/2023
  • some adjacent links may point to the same destination (WCAG A 1.1.1)
  • some links may link to an anchor on the page that does not exist (WCAG A 2.4.1)
  • some links may not have a clear name, role, or values (WCAG A 4.1.2)
  • when we use an online survey tool on select pages, at present the toggle button does not have descriptive text, this service is provided by a third-party HotJar, but we are working with them to resolve this issue (WCAG 4.1.2)

We will correct this as we review each page and as part of a review of our templates to be completed 2024.

Issues with form

  • people using screen readers are not able to see the layout of a form (WCAG A 1.3.1)
  • on this website enquire.ncl.ac.uk feedback forms do not have a submit button (WCAG A 3.2.2)
  • on some forms for searching for content, legends are missing to describe fields (WCAG A 1.3.1)
  • some forms may have controls such as fields that do not have adequate contrast (WCAG AA 1.4.11)

We will correct this as we review each page and as part of a review of our templates to be completed 2024.

Issues with tables

  • some of our tables do not include a scope attribute to help provide useful context (WCAG A 1.3.1)

We will correct this as we review each page and as part of a review of our templates to be completed 2024.

Issues with audio and video

  • some videos do not have captions (WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Pre-recorded))
  • some videos use automatically generate captions, which may be inaccurate (WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Pre-recorded))
  • some audio content does not have a transcript or other text equivalent (WCAG 1.2.5 Audio Description (Pre-recorded))

We will correct this as part of our review of audio and video content to be completed 2024.

Issues with linked files such as PDFs

  • some information is only available in formats such as PDF or Microsoft Word. Not all PDFs have been designed for accessibility. They may contain content that should be available in an accessible format such as HTML (WCAG 1.3 Adaptable)

We will correct this or provide accessible alternatives as we review each page of our site to be completed 2024. We will make digital content creators and contributors aware of the problems with PDF files ensuring new PDFs are accessible.

Issues with keyboard navigation and menus

  • on some pages there’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (WCAG 2.1.1)
  • some of our related links may not be written semantically as a list (WCAG A 1.3.1)
  • not all our pages all users to skip to the main content of the page (WCAG A 2.4.1)

We will correct this as we review each page and as part of a review of our templates and site functionality.

Issues on mobile devices or small screens

  • on some page content may not fit without requiring you to scroll in two dimensions (WCAG 1.4.10)

We will correct this as we review each page and as part of a review of our templates to be completed 2024.

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.
  • PDF/Word Documents; although we're still auditing our PDF documents, due to the sheer volume we assume many of these documents are not compliant.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Non-compliant websites

In addition to the above statements, there are number of other University websites which sit outside of the main University infrastructure. These are managed by individual teams or employees. These websites:

  • might use unconventional or specialist content management platforms
  • might not been audited yet and are as such assumed to be non-compliant with the guidelines

These websites will be audited or retired and will be included within one of the statements above or listed separately by June 2024.

This list will be updated as the websites are reviewed, audited, and correct:

Non-compliant intranets

These are older intranets and will be made accessible when they are updated.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility and inclusive design

  • our digital content editors are guided by Hemingway readability. These web content standards aim to make the website text as simple as possible to understand
  • we use Silktide; a website optimisation tool to monitor and scan a representative sample of our website conducted on a weekly basis
  • we manually check and test a representative sample of the website. We use an accessibility checklist and WebAIM for colour contrast checks
  • we work closely with our Wellbeing team to test new accessibility tools for users of our website
  • we are including accessibility as a fundamental part of all future web page and websites we create. This includes new web content templates, developing new functionality to meet accessibility standards
  • we are making content creators and subject matter experts aware of accessibility issues. This will increase knowledge of accessibility across the organisation. We aim to improve accessible content from initiation through to publishing

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared on 24 November 2022. It was last reviewed on 20 March 2023.