Accessibility improvements

We are continuously trying to improve the accessibility of our site. The work we do to fix accessibility issues will be listed on this page.

2023

Work to upgrade to Bootstrap 5 and our EdGEL design framework is ongoing
- Brings in some general accessibility improvements
Training workshops in accessibility started again
- How to interpret automated accessibility testing reports
- Writing Alt text
Removed instances of headings or links having no text
Improved some visual information to identify user interface components, such as keyboard focus,
- This does still need improved and will be addressed as part of our Design System project

News video playlist didn't have a frame title. This has now been added.
2 images on the University home page had null alt tags but should have alternative text as they are links. This alternative text has now been added.
Undergraduate contact form didn't have a frame title. This has now been added
There is a bug in the Bootstrap framework that introduced an incorrect ARIA attribute in mobile view for part of the navigation which could cause some issues for assistive technology users. This has now been fixed.
While we fixed some images that had null alt text some further bugs were found with images that are also links. While they have null alt text attributes they should be either linked to the adjacent link text or should have alternative text. This has now been fixed.

Workshops started to help Editors audit and then improve the accessibility of Word and PDF documents.

The following fixes have been implemented:

Where the 'Call to Action' button design was used and the button text was very long the content was presented off the page with a loss of information when magnified to the maximum browser level. The text now reflows correctly.
The font colour of the link text and the background colour for homepage panels using the 'Bright Pink' colour theme was not of a sufficient contrast. Colours were adjusted to improve colour contrast.
Align attribute removed from tables.
There are instances of headings which have no content. These will no longer be rendered in page content.
Some table headings had no content. This is now highlighted as an error to Editors and the page cannot be published until headings have been added.
There was a bug in the system that left some empty links in page content. The links had no value. These will no longer be rendered in page content.
The colour of the ellipsis text and the background colour for pagination controls were not of a sufficient contrast. This has now been adjusted.
Added titles for iFrames that display video. Screen reader users use these to navigate and find relevant content.

The font colour of the heading in the global footer was not a sufficient contrast with the background colour. It is large text but contrast should still be increased. Fix deployed to live website.
The font colour of the link text and the background colour for the tabs on the search page was not of a sufficient contrast.
The 'Type ahead' feature in the text field of the search page was not of a sufficient contrast. The JavaScript used also created a field without a label. This has now been removed.
Some custom content built outside the Content Management System did not have (or had the relevant attributes stripped out) labels correctly associated with the form field.
- Custom HTML asset form labels fixed on homepage

Empty table headings issue fixed manually on 30 pages. Development work to fix this issue scheduled.
Work started to identify other accessibility issues and listed within our accessibility statement

This article was published on 23 Jan, 2023