Accessibility
Accessibility statement for Ayrshire College
This accessibility statement applies to the Ayrshire College website.
This website is run by Ayrshire College. 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 400% 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)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. AbilityNet is a UK charity that exists to change the lives of disabled people by helping them to use digital technology at work, at home or in education.
Measures to support accessibility
We are using the following measures to ensure accessibility of the Ayrshire College website:
- We have formed an Accessibility Action Group to promote good practice
- We assign clear accessibility targets and responsibilities
- We employ formal accessibility quality assurance methods
We tested our website for accessibility during the design process, and we carry out similar testing on the live site.
How accessible this website is
You can magnify the content on this website up to 400% using inbuilt browser features (e.g. CTRL plus/minus sign for PCs or Command plus/minus sign for Macs) and the website has been designed to reflow according to device screen size.
The website has been designed to support menu navigation using a keyboard. Keyboard focus provides a visual indicator on the menu elements. Each menu and submenu element can be activated by a combination of tab key, arrow keys and the enter key.
Skip links are available to users on page load. Assistive Technology users can navigate through pages by using Header tags as section indicators.
When using a keyboard to move through a page can you tell where you are as all links receive focus when tabbing through page to highlight to user where they are on page.
Colour contrasts are set to meet the required AA level of at least 4:5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
We have installed Browsealoud, a web accessibility toolbar that helps make our website more inclusive for all. If you use this tool you will be able to navigate our website in a way that suits you best. Here are the main features:
Hover to speak: text-to-speech – reads any text out loud.
Translates into 99 different languages
Play: text-to-speech – also reads text out loud when you select a specific page/paragraph.
Picture dictionary: displays words meaning through illustration.
MP3 Maker: converts online content into audio.
Screen mask: helps you focus on reading one passage at a time.
Text magnifier: magnifies text and reads it out aloud.
Webpage simplifier: creates a simplified view of a web page.
We also have a tool called SensusAccess. This allows you to convert your documents into a range of alternative media including audiobooks (MP3 and DAISY), e-books (EPUB, EPUB3 AND MOBI) and digital Braille. You can also convert inaccessible documents such as image only PDF files and Microsoft Power Point Presentations into a more accessible and less tricky format. You can access this tool using this here.
Our website contains both audio and video content. Some audio and video content is accompanied by captioning. To access captions, click on the CC button on the media player toolbar
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
Feedback and contact information
If you would like to provide us with any feedback on our website or need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:
- email marketing@ayrshire.ac.uk
- call 01563 523501
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within two days.
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, contact our team on marketing@ayrshire.ac.uk
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).
Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person
BSL - Ayrshire College
Contact Scotland provide an easy and flexible way of interacting with deaf BSL users who interact and study at Ayrshire College. Staff members can contact you and of course you can contact the College/Staff member.
What is ContactScotland-BSL service?
ContactSCOTLAND-BSL is a Scottish Government service that connects deaf BSL users throughout Scotland via an online BSL interpreting video relay service (VRS) with all of Scotland’s public authorities and voluntary organisations (Third Sector) and now beyond.
Why Ayrshire College uses the ContactScotland-BSL service
VRS for all – from March 2019 contactSCOTLAND-BSL now provides VRS For All. This now means that Deaf BSL users can contact any service including the College that uses telephone contact with their service users or customers.
If you experience any difficulties contacting the College please get in touch with us at inclusivelearning@ayrshire.ac.uk .
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Ayrshire College 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 non-compliances listed below.
Non-accessible content
We formally test the accessibility of key user journeys that represent the breadth of content across our website on a regular basis against WCAG 2.1 AA standards using a mixture of manual and automated testing.
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
- Some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
- Images do not currently have an appropriate text equivalent.
There is currently no place to add alt text on the content management system and we are exploring this with our web developer as we know how essential this is.
- The audio files on our podcasts made before 23 September 2020 do not have a transcript.
- Some videos have captions that are synchronised with the audio; newer videos do have captions, older videos do not have captions. Any videos made before 23 September 2020 do not have a transcript.
- Some videos made before 23 September 2020 do not have a BSL signer.
- The purpose of most links are made clear from its link text – we check our links on a regular basis but we may have missed one. If you find something that does not work that we missed, remember to contact us.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
We plan to add text alternatives for all images by December 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Disproportionate burden
We have not made any disproportionate burden claims.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
Videos
Videos created pre-23 September 2020 are exempt from the accessibility regulations including pre-recorded audio and video and live video and audio.
Any new videos after this date will meet accessibility regulations.
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.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps
Third-party content
The best way to learn more about the technical accessibility of a third-party platform is to review the accessibility statement for the platform provided by the supplier searchBOX, a centralised, independent directory of third-party accessibility information is a reliable source of this kind of information.
To help accessibility compliance across the sector, Ayrshire College supports searchBOX, a centralised, independent directory of third-party accessibility information.
Ayrshire College encourages all our partners and suppliers to support this effort by ensuring that their accessibility information is included in the searchBOX Finder Service.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
Ayrshire College is working with our website supplier to resolve specific accessibility issues on the website.
We have also formed a cross college working party to monitor and evaluate accessibility.
We have launched a campaign to all staff called “Small Changes Make a Big Difference” to raise awareness of accessibility on our website and VLE and to promote the training and support available.
During academic year 20/21 we will be developing a campaign aimed at students to raise awareness of how we are working to continuously improve their online experience and to ask for their feedback on how we are doing.
Our accessibility roadmap shows our progress around improving accessibility on our website and VLE and provides a timeline of when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on September 2020. It will be reviewed on a regular basis.
This website was last tested on July 2019. The test was carried out by McNaught Consultancy. This audit helped our organisation identify the likely experiences of disabled students accessing our website. There were two elements of website accessibility that were explored:
- Technical accessibility - does our website meet accessibility standards? Would it present barriers to users with particular access needs?
- Informational accessibility - does the information exist for a disabled student to independently meet their own needs in accessing the website or ascertain whether the college technology infrastructure will support their productivity and independence?
The auditor decided on a sample of pages to test. Read the full accessibility audit. During Academic year 2019/20 we have been working to implement the recommendations from this report. We have been doing further testing with a range of students who use assistive technology and they have provided helpful feedback about how our website meets their needs.
Accessibility statement updates log
We first prepared this statement on September 2020. We are logging every change we make to this page.
- September 2020: statement first published