Accessibility Statement
Accessibility statement for www.bathspa.ac.uk
This accessibility statement applies to the www.bathspa.ac.uk website. It does not apply to content on other bathspa.ac.uk subdomains.
This website is run by the External Affairs Unit at Bath Spa University.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
- zoom in up to 300% 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
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. Additionally, major operating systems produce the following guidance:
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams (e.g. graduation live streams) do not have captions
- some of our online forms may be difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
- some pages have elements on them with poor colour contrast
- some heading elements are not consistent
- some images do not have image descriptions
- some HTML elements have empty tags
Feedback and contact information
If you experience difficulties accessing information on this website and need it in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please email external@bathspa.ac.uk.
We'll review your request and will get back to you within five working 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: External Affairs Unit email external@bathspa.ac.uk
We'll respond as soon as possible but this will be no more than five working days.
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
Find out how to contact the University.
If you’d like more information about accessibility and resources for students, please visit our Student Wellbeing Services’ Accessibility and Disability page.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Bath Spa University 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
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- Our slideshow template which is used to display features of multiple slides of text on a grey background and an accompanying image (an example can be found on the Contact page) incorrectly uses a 'listbox' role within the code. As this is not an accessible name it does not give suitable context for all users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value: ARIA input fields must have an accessible name).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Some pages have duplicate titles. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Some pages have incorrect heading structures. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Some content elements have poor colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum)).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Images on some pages do not always have suitable image descriptions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Some alternative text for images are identical to link text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Not all images are free of text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5 (Images of Text).
We aim to fix this issue by March 2023. - Link text is not always identified in ways other than colour. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1(Use of Colour).
This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by March 2023. - Some form elements on our website do not have appropriate labels. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 3.3.2 (Labels or Instructions).
This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some heading tags are empty. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels) .
This is caused by incorrectly coded HTML templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some link tags are empty. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context), and 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)).
This is caused by incorrectly coded HTML templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some elements with an ARIA role are not contained by a parent role. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
This issue is caused by a JavaScript slideshow plugin that is integrated into a number of slideshow templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some ARIA attributes do not conform to valid values. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
This issue is mainly caused by a JavaScript slideshow plugin and a third-party social media feed script that is integrated into a number of templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some ARIA roles do not conform to valid values. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
This issue is caused by a third-party social media feed script that is integrated into a number of templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some interactive controls are nested which could cause issues for screen reading software. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
This issue is caused by a JavaScript slideshow plugin that is integrated into a number of slideshow templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some HTML is not valid. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).
This is caused by incorrectly coded HTML templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Pages contain various landmark issues. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
This is caused by incorrectly coded HTML templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023. - Some iframes do not have a title. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
This is caused by incorrectly coded HTML templates within our Content Management System. This is a web development issue that we aim to fix by September 2023.
Disproportionate burden
At this time, we have not made any disproportionate burden claims.
Content that’s not within the scope of the 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.
Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
Accessibility roadmap
We recently completed (August 2022) an accessibility project to address some of the major issues that were found with the Bath Spa University website following an accessibility audit carried out by the Cabinet Office. Most of these changes were to do with navigating the site using the keyboard and some colour contrast issues.
We are continuing to work through the issues listed on the non-compliance section above and aim to fix the content and image issues by March 2023. Additionally, we are in the process of recruiting a Front-End Web Developer that will give us more in-house expertise to investigate and address the more technical web development accessibility issues. We hope to then be able to solve the HTML, CSS and JavaScript issues by September 2023.
We will perform automated and manual checks every 3 months to continually assess the accessibility of the website and make updates to our accessibility statement. The next accessibility review will be in April 2023.
Accessibility improvements
View a summary of the issues fixed in August 2022.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 30 August 2022. It was last reviewed on 30 January 2023.
This website was last tested on 17 January 2023 by the External Affairs Unit. We used a combination of simple manual checks and automated tests to find common barriers to users with accessibility needs.
We tested a sample set of pages that represent the main templates and page layouts that are available within our content management system.
Manual checks included using each page without a mouse, viewing the page at different zoom settings, and simulating viewing the page on a small screen.
The automated tests were completed using: