Accessibility
Accessibility statement for the SRUC website
Our goal is to ensure our website is accessible to all users whatever type of device they are using and whatever their disability, including those with impaired vision, motor difficulties, cognitive impairments or learning disabilities, deafness or impaired hearing.
We aim to adhere to current best practice, such as the W3C's Web Content Accessibility guidelines and the RNIB's 'See It Right' guidelines and of course Public Sector Bodies websites and mobile applications accessibility regulations.
Using this website
This website is operated by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). We want the site to be as accessible as possible and we are committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities.
Our website's pages are designed to be viewable on small screens as well as standard monitors. The site is navigable using a keyboard and without images, JavaScript or CSS support. All text is resizable using standard browser controls.
Users should be able to:
- Zoom text to 500% with it remaining fully readable
- Use a screen reader to browse the website
- Modify spacing of text using an appropriate browser extension (for example Easy Read in Chrome)
The UK charity AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
Measures to support accessibility
We are using third-party software to assess the accessibility of our website and include accessibility within our internal policies. We carried out a mixture of automated and manual tests on our website for accessibility during the design process, and we carry out similar testing on the live site.
We have a rolling programme of updating content in accordance with the guidelines set out by the WCAG.
There is a ‘skip to main content’ button so users can access what they need quickly. All elements should have sufficient colour contrast ratio. We use a scroll reveal effect which can trick accessibility audit tools into thinking otherwise.
How accessible this website is
Non-accessible content
We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:
Text spacing
While text can be zoomed or magnified, and text can be spaced out using an extension such as Easy Read in Chrome, it is not possible for users to modify text spacing or line height. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12 (text spacing). We are looking at a solution to this issue.
Images
Some images have blank alternate text because they are decorative (majority of images on SRUC site) meaning they will be ignored by a screen reader (which is the preferred option), having alternative text for all images (which aren't necessary to understanding the information) will overwhelm a screen reader user with irrelevant content
Header
There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option). This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 (bypass blocks).
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be marked up so they are inaccessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential for active administrative processes. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Video captions
Some of our videos don’t have accurate edited captions or transcripts. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.1 (audio-only and video-only pre-recorded), 1.2.2 (captions pre-recorded), 1.2.3 (audio description or media alternative pre-recorded) and 1.2.5 (audio description pre-recorded). The regulations do not apply to recorded videos published before 23 September 2020.
We produce hundreds of hours of video a week, and for some of our videos, the content is lengthy and contains detailed explanations of technical subjects. In some cases we are choosing not to use captioning because A) auto-captioning it is not accurate and for technical content it could potentially be misleading and B) it is a disproportionate burden due to the cost of manually captioning this long form content. The Jisc guidance here gives a good Plain English overview of the legislation and exemptions.
Although not referenced in the WCAG AA criteria, we also try to provide British Sign Language translation for video material where this is practical however the volume produced means that to do so for every video would represent a significant cost and also impact negatively on the speed of production.
However if a user of our services wishes to have captioning or BSL translation applied to a video that we have produced, please get in touch with us at digitalteam@sruc.ac.uk and we will endeavour to get the content to you. This exemption may mean that we fail to meet the WCAG AA criteria fully, in particular “Failure of Success Criterion 1.2.2 due to captions omitting some dialogue or important sound effects”. You can read more about it here.
Help with multimedia
If you are having difficulty accessing video/audio files, try downloading one of the following players:
Additional accessibility considerations
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define three levels of conformance: level A, level AA and level AAA. Although our goal is WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance, we have also applied some level AAA success criteria:
- Images of text are only used for pure decoration or where a particular presentation of text is essential to the information being conveyed
- The purpose of each link can be identified from link text alone, except where the purpose of the link would be ambiguous to users in general
- Functionality of the content is operable through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes
- Information about the user’s location within a set of web pages is available
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 use our Contact page to call or use the contact form (select 'Website Feedback' as enquiry type). We'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, use our Contact page to call or use the contact form (select 'Website Feedback' as enquiry type). We'll get back to you as soon as possible.
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).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
SRUC is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (websites and mobile applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed above under the heading Non-accessible content.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This accessibility statement applies to www.sruc.ac.uk. The statement was prepared on 4 June 2020 and last reviewed on 29 June 2022.
This website was last tested on 17 May 2022. The test was carried out by SRUC's Digital Team. A third part tool crawls every page on our site for us and highlights potential accessibility issues, which we then correct. We do this process in full every six months.
If you have any questions about the accessibility of this website, please use the form on our Contact page and select 'Website Feedback' as enquiry type. We'll get back to you as soon as possible.
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