Accessibility statement

Website accessibility statement inline with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018

This website is run by the University of Edinburgh and is on the www.ed.ac.uk domain. 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 500% with reflow and without loss of content
  • Using your browser settings, change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • Use the website without encountering any flashing, scrolling or moving text
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of Job Access with Speech (JAWS), NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and VoiceOver)
  • Navigate to most of the content by keyboard only
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software (including Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
  • Use the website without encountering any time limits

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

Customising the website

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible.

AbilityNet - My computer my way

With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website to make it easier to read and navigate.

Addtional information on how to customise our website appearance

If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:

Information on accessible document conversion service - SensusAccess

How accessible this website is

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

  • Some text size is small 
  • Some colour contrasts could be improved 
  • Spellcheck options are not offered in all browsers
  • Tabbing via keyboard is not always logical and/or consistent, and does not always meet contrast focus requirements

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille, please contact the Information Services Helpline on 0131 651 5151 or use their online contact form. We'll try and respond as quickly as possible but this will be no more than 5 working days. 

Information Services online contact form

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 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 please let us know: 

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 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 please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly.

Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:

Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website

Contacting us by phone using British Sign Language

British Sign Language service

contactSCOTLAND-BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

contactSCOTLAND-BSL service details

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Edinburgh 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 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

The full guidelines are available at:

 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items do not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria

  • Not all non-text content has a text alternative.
  • The way the content is presented affects its meaning, and a correct reading sequence is not programmatically determined
  • There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours, especially where the text size is small.
  • It is not always clear where the user has reached via keyboard navigation.
  • User errors are either not automatically detected or suggestions for correction are not given.
  • There is currently an empty button field that appears at smaller screen sizes that is part of the navigation. 
  • The footer heading font colour is not of a sufficient contrast to the background colour. 
  • The CMS login link font colour is not of a sufficient contrast to the background colour. 
  • Some div tags are duplicated and have the same id. Id values should be unique within the page.
  • There are some empty headings and links.
  • Links in the text should be clearly identifiable (color alone is not enough to distinguish links from the surrounding text).
  • Table captions have insufficient color contrast between foreground and background (foreground color: #6c757d, background color: #f8f9fa),
  • Form pages don't contain a level-one heading
  • While we have a 'Skip to content' link on every page when new users access the website they will receive our cookie consent banner at the top of the page. This can't be skipped over as it's important to get consent for cookies to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations. We do not believe this to be an accessibility issue but it does mean that the site will fail some automated accessibility tests. Once a user has chosen their level of consent they will then be able to access the 'Skip to content' link. 

We aim to improve our websites accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. See the section below ('What we're doing to improve accessibility') on how we are improving our site accessibility. 

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix. 

Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

There are currently no accessibility problems with the site that we would consider to be out of scope. 

What we're doing to improve accessibility

  • We use a design framework which is stable and has been tested for accessibility issues. This cuts down, but doesn't totally remove, the risk of web editors adding design elements that are not accessible. 
  • The  University has a published web strategy and governance approach.
  • Support, guidance and training process in place for all University staff to increase awareness of accessibility and what our responsibilities are.

Accessibility improvements

Accessibility improvements, bug fixes and development work to fix issues will be recorded to keep a record of work completed.

Accessibility improvements

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was updated on 28/09/2022.

This website was last tested in 28/09/2022. The test was carried out by the Website and Communications team. 

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test

While the website was last tested on 28/09/2022 there is also a monthly auditing process of the wider website. Tests are carried out using a set of automated auditing tools. We also run some of our own reports using WebAIM WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. The testing is followed by manual prioritisation of any issues with key user journeys. 

Design framework

The central University of Edinburgh website uses a design framework. This framework was built with accessibility in mind from the outset. All the page and design elements for the website are run from the framework. 

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