Accessibility Statement for Art Academy

This accessibility statement applies to this website only, which is operated by the Art Academy.

We commit to ensuring our website is as accessible as possible. This means that users should be able to:

  •  access the website regardless of the device and browser used
  •   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 (Apple VoiceOver and ChromeVox).

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible our website is

We have used the following tools and applications to evaluate the accessibility of our website against WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards:

● Desktop browsers:

  • Google Chrome
  • Safari

●  Screen reader:

  •  Apple Voiceover
  • ChromeVox

●  Other tools:

  • NU HTML Validator
  • Lighthouse

This audit has revealed that the following elements of our website are not fully accessible and compliant to WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards:

  • Buttons on some webpages do not have alternative text
  • Colour contrast between foreground and background colours on some webpages do not meet contrast ratio threshold
  • The order of some headers are not is sequential descending order
  • Touch targets on some webpages are not sufficiently sized

Feedback and contact information

If you need information or content from our website in alternative, more accessible formats please contact our Director of Operations, Geof Thompson by email at [email protected].

Please include details of the content and required formats for the pages you are trying to access.

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Art Academy 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 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  •  Some text is styled to look like headings but has not been coded as appropriately. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A).
  • The meaningful sequence of custom drop down menus is not logical. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (Level A).
  • Some colour combinations do not have a sufficient colour contrast ratio. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA).
  • The site has some code structure/parsing errors. Additionally, non-unique ID values are also present in the code. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.1 Parsing (Level A).
  • The site has some buttons with missing alternative text. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 Perceivable (Level A).
  •  The site has missing form labels on some buttons. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) and 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA)
  • The site has some buttons with empty or no value text. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A) and 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A)
  •  The site has some redundant alternative text. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A).
  • Some heading levels are skipped. This fails WCAG criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A) and 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA)
  •  The site has some redundant links with two adjacent links going to the same URL. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A)
  • The site contains a <noscript> element which is presented if JavaScript is disabled. Nearly all screen readers and other assistive technology use JavaScript.

Content that is not within the scope of accessibility regulations

  • Accessibility regulations do not require PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 to be compliant if they’re not essential to providing our services.
  • Embedded maps on the website may not be fully accessible. We aim to provide navigational information in an alternative format where relevant.
  • Time-based media may not be fully accessible, this includes video content published on platforms including Vimeo and Youtube.

Third party content, plug-ins and services

Our website uses the third party cookie tracker plugin Cookiebot to track user consent. Cookiebot’s banner plug-in supports W3C’s accessibility standards WCAG 2.0 and WAI-ARIA but is not fully compliant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.

Further information about Cookiebot’s accessibility can be found here.

View our Cookie Policy here.

We use LiveChat on our Academic webpages which allow users to connect with our Academic team to ask questions in an online chat client.

LiveChat’s chat plug-in supports W3C’s accessibility standards WCAG 2.1 AA and WAI-ARIA but is not fully compliant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.

Further information about LiveChat’s accessibility can be found here.

We use Moodle as our Virtual Learning Environment for our Academic programmes. Our Academic students use Moodle to access course materials and to communicate with tutors. Moodle supports W3C’s accessibility standards WCAG 2.1 Level AA and WAI-ARIA but is not fully compliant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.

Further information about Moodle’s accessibility can be found here.

Some of our web pages include third party content which we have no control over, such as:

  • hyperlinks to web pages hosted by third parties
  • content embedded on our website hosted on other websites, such as social media sites (eg.Vimeo, Youtube, Instagram)

Accessibility regulations do not require us to manage these kinds of content. If you would like to give feedback on the accessibility of third party content hosted on our website please contact our Director of Operations, Geof Thompson by email at [email protected].

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We are developing a digital accessibility roadmap to show how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

The roadmap is prioritised as follows:

  • High priority: fix issues in site-wide components and templates (e.g., header, footer, site navigation)
  • Medium priority: fix issues in any reusable components (e.g., accordion component, image cards)
  • Low priority: fix issues in individual page elements (content that is unique to a page)

We are working with a third party website developer to implement structural changes to our website to deliver our digital accessibility roadmap and to improve our compliance, targeting the areas of non-compliance highlighted in section 6.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on the 16th July 2024. It was last reviewed on 30th July 2024.

This website was last internally tested by the Art Academy on the 16th of July 2024 against the WCAG [2.1 or 2.2] AA standard. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

You can read the full accessibility test report by NU HTML Checker and Lighthouse.