Accessibility statement for ljmu.ac.uk

This accessibility statement applies to the www.ljmu.ac.uk website. It does not cover the following domains:

  • https://www.astro.ljmu.ac.uk
  • https://buyonline.ljmu.ac.uk/
  • https://issuu.com – LJMU publications
  • https://www.jmsu.co.uk
  • https://jobs.ljmu.ac.uk
  • https://ljmualumnishop.com/
  • https://ljmuconnect.com
  • https://www.ljmuisc.com
  • https://ljmu.libcal.com
  • https://ljmulibrary.wordpress.com
  • https://ljmumediaproduction.com
  • https://ljmu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com
  • https://lsad.co.uk
  • https://ltech.ljmu.ac.uk
  • https://matterport.com – virtual video tours of LJMU campus, faculties and accommodation
  • https://policies.ljmu.ac.uk
  • https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk
  • https://staffevents.ljmu.ac.uk

This website is run by us, and we want as many people as possible to be able to use it. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • 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 (including JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver and TalkBack)

We are also working on making the website text easy to understand and aiming for a reading age of a 12-year-old.

Some of our content is technical. We use technical terms when there is no simple language that we could use without changing the meaning of the term.

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

How accessible this website is

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

  • we have many old publication documents which are in PDF and Microsoft formats and have not been designed for accessibility
  • we have promotional PDF documents that are designed for print and are not fully accessible
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • some content is embedded in our website, such as maps and videos, and you cannot easily scale these on screen
  • you cannot use this website easily if JavaScript is switched off

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:

  • email the Web Access Team
  • write to Web Access, Brand and Design, LJMU, Rodney House, 70 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool L3 5UX.

We will consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are 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 the requirements of the accessibility regulations, then please email the Web Access Team.

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

Liverpool John Moores University 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 AA 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

Forms

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are forms and essential to providing our services. For example, of the top 500 downloaded documents, 29 forms are published as Word documents. By 31 May 2024, we plan to either fix these or provide accessible alternatives in line with WCAG 2.1 techniques.

Images

Some images have alternative text that is either duplicated, or unnecessary, or does not fully describe the image. This fails the WCAG success criterion 1.4.5 Images of Text. We plan to resolve this by 31 May 2024.

Links

Some links do not have fully descriptive display text. This fails the WCAG success criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context). We plan to resolve this through ongoing editing processes, and we aim to have it largely resolved by May 2024.

Some links do not indicate their purpose. This fails the WCAG success criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context). We plan to resolve this by 31 May 2024.

Map

Our maps are programmatically accessible. We are working towards ensuring that essential information (such as addresses) is also available in the page content. We plan to resolve this by 30 June 2024.

Navigation and accessing information

Some user interface components do not name or announce content. This fails the WCAG success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value. We plan to resolve this by 31 May 2024.

Page content

Some page titles may not identify the contents or purpose of the web page. This fails the WCAG success criterion 2.4.2 Page Titled. We plan to resolve this by 30 April 2024. 

Not all our content reaches our target reading age of 12 years old. This fails the WCAG success criterion 3.1.5 Reading Level. We are resolving this with guidelines for new content and for content that is reviewed. This should be largely completed by December 2024. 

Screen reader technology

Some loading messages and dynamic content is not read by the screen reader. This fails the WCAG success criterion 4.1.3 Status Messages. We plan to resolve this by 31 May 2024. 

Video

Some embedded videos do not use audio descriptions or text transcripts. This fails the WCAG success criterion 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded) and 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) and 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded). We plan to resolve this by 31 May 2024.

Some videos have content that is presented visually which is not available elsewhere. This fails the WCAG success criterion 1.2.1 Audio-only and Video-only (Prerecorded). We plan to resolve this by 31 May 2024.

Virtual tour videos are provided by a third party, Matterport.

Disproportionate burden

PDFs and other documents

Our site contains 1,233 PDFs and other documents created prior to 23 September 2018.

Since 23 September 2018, we have created or updated over 3,300 documents, and there has been more than 1million unique downloads for all file formats.

The top 0.75% (25) of PDF and Word documents account for almost 30% (294,989) of all downloads between 23 September 2018 and October 2022. These documents are accessible.

We are focused on ensuring that new documents required for essential services are accessible.

We will also ensure that documents addressing the needs of, or are meant for, people with disabilities are accessible.

We plan to fix other PDFs and documents as and when they are updated and republished. This includes PDFs and documents created prior to 23 September 2018 that are being updated.

We will not fix any other documents due to the disproportionate cost burden of fixing the documents considering the frequency that these documents are accessed.

We will publish any new PDFs or Word documents to meet accessibility standards.

Images

Our media library contains over 20,000 images. Some images had alternative text that was either duplicated, or unnecessary, or did not fully describe the image. We have worked our way through our media library and have completed the updates for the high traffic images.

We are focused on ensuring that new images are accessible.

We plan to fix other images as and when they are updated and republished. We will also check images when we update content on our pages.

We will not fix any other images due to the disproportionate cost burden of fixing the images considering the frequency that they are used.

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

WCAG 2.1

We are currently fixing all known non (A and AA) compliances that resulted from an accessibility audit in the week commencing 12 July 2021. In June 2023, we invited UserVision to confirm these have been successfully resolved and we are fixing the outstanding issues.

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we don’t plan to fix old PDF newsletters that might still be published and accessed through our website.

Live video

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

Embedded videos

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix pre-recorded videos published before 23 September 2020.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We're working towards WCAG 2.1 AA certification. We plan to confirm compliance during Q2 2024 (excluding PDFs and other burdens). We also plan to continue testing during 2024 in a programme of continual assessment.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared to meet regulatory standards on 19 October 2022.

Our previous accessibility statement was last updated on 29 February 2024. This accessibility statement was reviewed and published on 2 April 2024.

UserVision tested the website in the week commencing 12 July 2021. We tested a sample of representative pages and our approach also included automated testing. See UserVision's sampling details and full accessibility report.

This website was last tested in the week commencing 26 June 2023. The test was carried out by UserVision who audited the original issues and other sample pages.