Accessibility

On this page:

Accessibility statement for the University of Stirling website

This accessibility statement applies to the www.stir.ac.uk website.

This website is run by the University of Stirling. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • 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.

How accessible this website is

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

  • some pages have headings and text in all capital letters
  • some PDF and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • many older videos don’t have captions.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please email webteam@stir.ac.uk. We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

If you cannot view the maps on our Getting to Stirling or Getting around campus pages, call or email us for directions.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems which aren't listed on this page, or think that we're not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations then please email webteam@stir.ac.uk to let us know.

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

You can get in touch with the University of Stirling by calling +44 (0) 1786 473171. British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact the University of Stirling via contactSCOTLAND-BSL, the online British Sign Language video relay interpreting service. Find out more on the contactSCOTLAND website.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The University of Stirling 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 AAA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Issues with links

We scan the site regularly for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.

Issues with documents

Some of the Word documents on our website published after 23 September 2018, are not fully accessible to screen readers. We are currently fixing these or replacing them with accessible HTML pages. We aim to complete this by the end of September 2024.

Disproportionate burden

The University of Stirling is not claiming disproportionate burden for any issues on www.stir.ac.uk.

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.

Pre-recorded audio

We do not plan to add an alternative format for pre-recorded audio published before 23 September 2020, because this is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Maps

We provide maps for visitors on travel information pages and also campus maps. These maps are not fully accessible to all assistive technology. Maps are currently not within the scope of the accessibility regulations. If you cannot view the maps on our Getting to Stirling or Getting around campus pages, call or email us for directions.

Archive websites

Our archive news website (hosting articles published before 2017) is no longer updated and is not needed for services we provide. This archive is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Third party content

Third party content displayed on our website that's under someone else’s control and which we have not paid for or developed is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. Examples on stir.ac.uk include feeds from social media channels, DiscoverUni widgets on Undergraduate courses, Altmetric research publication feeds and social 'like' buttons.

How we test this website

We currently use automated testing to drive most of our improvements to accessibility on our site. Automated testing can't find everything that could be improved, but is rarely wrong about what it does find.

There are a number of accessibility features which we test manually, which include:

  • manual checks against the W3C validator
  • ensuring that page elements render correctly at all sizes, including when zoomed to 300%
  • reviewing ARIA labelling to ensure it is descriptive
  • checking the tab order on pages for keyboard navigation
  • colour contrast, which is normally done at design stage by using tools.

This website undergoes automated testing against the W3C WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines using the automated Siteimprove tool. This tool scans 100% of our web pages every few days, and tests against all the criteria in the guidelines which are possible to automate.

The reports generated by Siteimprove are reviewed by the website content and development teams, with any actions taken and prioritised into our future work.

We also test a selection of the most visited pages on our website using the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool which facilitates human evaluation of web content, and axe DevTools to identify issues during development.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We will introduce more methods to test www.stir.ac.uk for accessibility beyond automated software, and ensure information and support for accessible content creation is communicated to everyone who contributes to www.stir.ac.uk.

This will include:

  • training content contributors and CMS editors to ensure content is always created with accessibility in mind
  • creating accessible document guidelines
  • examining microdata markup and alt text using special tools
  • checking content in a text-only browser
  • testing using screen readers to read text aloud
  • testing using disability simulation tools to browse the website
  • testing with real assistive technology users.

Other sites within our domain

There are many different sub-sites and systems across our domain. Accessibility statements for such systems and sub-sites will be provided locally.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 19 December 2019. It was last reviewed on 30 October 2023.

Accessible documents

Read our statement on the accessibility of our documents.