Gower College Swansea is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This accessibility statement applies to the Gower College Swansea website: https://www.gcs.ac.uk/
In this report:
- How to get the most from our website
- Compliance status
- Non accessible content
- Preparation of this accessibility statement
- Feedback and contact information
- Enforcement procedure
How to get the most from our website
Gower College Swansea has been actively working to improve the user experience of our website before our redesign and relaunch in late 2023.
In the meantime, here are ways we have worked to give you as accessible an experience as we can. We make some suggestions about browser plugins in the section below. These are made in good faith to enhance user experience, but you use them at your own risk. The college cannot take responsibility for unforeseen problems, and we cannot provide technical support.
Text to speech
if you prefer listening to information rather than reading it, you can use the Microsoft Edge browser. The built in text to speech will read almost all the text content on our website.
Magnification
The site can be zoomed up to 400% and content will reflow to fit the page. You do not have to scroll left and right to read it. Just use the CTRL and + key to zoom in or CTRL and - to zoom out. On a Mac use the Command + and - key instead. The website responds well on desktop and on mobile. New content is created using responsive templates to give you a consistent magnification experience.
Did you know?
You can also magnify text by changing the default text size in the browser under your browser settings. This can give up to 200% magnification and still remain usable.
Navigation and keyboard accessibility
Getting around the site
You can navigate the site in three ways.
- A consistent top-level navigation (white text on deep pink).
- Breadcrumb trails are available for some deeper level pages.
- Using the search box.
All 3 options can be accessed by keyboard or mouse.
Getting around a page
The website pages use header tags and labelled content regions to give pages a helpful structure. Users can benefit by:
- using browser plugins like HeadingsMap for Chrome to swiftly navigate the page,
- using inbuilt screen reader keystrokes to browse by heading levels,
- using "Skip links" to let you bypass repetitive navigation blocks.
Keyboard access
All parts of the website can be navigated using standard keystrokes. The tab order is logical, and the currently focused item is visually highlighted.
For example:
- Tab moves forward through active elements (e.g., hyperlinks). Shift Tab moves back,
- Enter confirms selections,
- Arrow keys move through options.
Colours
We have improved the colour contrasts on most of the site, but a few issues remain (see Non-Accessible Content below). You can tweak your own colour backgrounds in your browser settings or with plugins like ScreenShader for Chrome. If you prefer higher contrasts, this can be achieved using the accessibility settings in your computer or browser plugins like HighContrast for Chrome.
Multimedia
For many people, videos are more effective ways of understanding information. We use videos on many pages. We endeavour to ensure these are captioned with accurate captions. The video player on the page can be operated using either a mouse or keyboard. The subtitling button is visible on the bottom right of the video once the video is playing. This can be toggled on or off.
Images
Images have appropriate alternative text descriptions for screenreader users. This includes ensuring decorative images are ignored.
Hyperlinks
We have worked to ensure most hyperlinks have unique and meaningful text, avoiding the use of "click here"or raw URLs.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
Non accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reason(s):
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
The following represent areas of the website that are not yet compliant. We describe the issue and provide a timeline for remediation.
- The skip link moves the page down but does not move the keyboard focus for keyboard only users. This fails 2.4.1: Bypass blocks.
Timeline = being actively worked on and should be fixed in late 2023. - Repeated information for screenreader users – several pages include duplicate links to the same location – for example an image of a campus and a text link to the campus. This is also true of the News and events pages. This fails 1.1.1: Non-text Content and 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context).
We plan to alter the link tags so they work without repetition for screenreader users. Timeline = Late 2023. - Some pages contain the same link text for different destinations – for example “Find out more.” This makes it impossible for a screenreader user to navigate using a screenreader links list. This contravenes WCAG 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context).
Timeline = this is an ongoing process in which Staff are being actively trained on best practices when creating hyperlinks. We aim to cover these with launch of the new website. - Colour contrasts. Colour contrasts have been improved over most of the website but there are a few pages with orange background on white text where contrasts fail (WCAG 1.4.3 – Contrast minimum). We are working with Marketing to ensure all colours on the new website meet contrast requirements.
Timeline = new website launch in late 2023. - Colour as sole indicator. A minority of pages have hyperlink text distinguished by colour alone with no underlining or alternative visual indicator. This fails WCAG 1.4.1 Use of colour.
Timeline = before late 2023. - Pages containing breadcrumb navigation sometimes have duplicate names for navigation landmarks. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 Info and relationships.
Timeline = before late 2023.
Disproportionate burden
The majority of known issues on the current website have been tackled or have a clear timeline for fixing but we believe some would represent a disproportionate burden when the anticipated cost of fixing is balanced with the likely numbers affected and the short timescale before the current website is replaced in late 2023. These are the remaining issues for which we claim disproportionate burden. This will be reconsidered with the annual accessibility statement review.
- “Slick Slider” functionality on home page. (WCAG 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide). We have been able to improve keyboard focus visibility and accessible labelling, but it can currently only be paused with a mouse. Legacy properties of the slider mean that this is not a quick fix and – given the change to a new website later this year and the very small number of users likely to be impacted, we regard this as a disproportionate burden that will be fixed in the design of the new website. This has now been resolved as of Summer 2023 and will also be a non-issue on the upcoming new website.
- Video audio description. Where videos provide an introduction to different campuses, they do not currently use audio description of the visual imagery. Much of the imagery would be considered decorative if it were in “still image” format. We consider the time and resource required for meaningful audio description is disproportionate to the small benefit it would provide, not least because blind students would be given extensive orientation and navigation opportunities as part of a support plan.
- PDFs. There are many legacy PDFs on the site. These have been created by different authors with different levels of accessibility training using different tools. College discussions are taking place to decide whether remediation or recreation in HTML versions is the most effective approach. Staff are being actively trained on creating accessible documents. We consider it a disproportionate burden to fix the content on the existing website rather than prioritising improvement on the new site.
Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
- PDFs – some of our PDFs predate Sept 23rd, 2018, and are not “needed for active administrative processes” therefore are out of scope. We will, however, seek to provide a more accessible format on request (see contact information below).
- Several pages include online maps to supplement the address and contact information (for example the location of the Gorseinon campus. These are out of scope and address information is available in text format.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 16th January 2023.
This statement has been developed as a response to the review carried out by the website accessibility monitoring team at the Government's Digital Service. Further to this report we have also sought expert consolation, the results of which has reached beyond outcomes of the GDS findings October 2022.
Testing was conducted on a sample of pages using a range of manual and automated testing approaches including keyboard testing, screenreader testing (NVDA and Windows Narrator), testing with browser plugins and triangulating with WAVE, SiteImprove and Accessibility Insights tools.
The statement was last reviewed on.
29th June 2023.
Feedback and contact information.
Please contact us by emailing Simon Palmer via digitalaccessibility@gowercollegeswansea.ac.uk
Contact us to:
- help us improve our accessibility (for example notify us of any compliance failures we did not spot)
- to request an alternative format (for example where a PDF is inaccessible)
- to request information or content excluded from the scope of the Directive.
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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).