Accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for Imperial College London website

This accessibility statement applies to content published on the Imperial domain www.imperial.ac.uk/. It does not apply to content accessed via another domain/sub domain e.g., https://asset-library.imperial.ac.uk or http://icis.imperial.ac.uk etc.  

For other web addresses you should refer to the accessibility statement for that domain or sub domain. 

This website is run by Imperial College London.  

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 400% without the text spilling off the screen 
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and Voice-over) 

We have 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 the website is

There are over 400 staff at Imperial who have access to publish content on the website. We share accessibility reminders regularly with all, and offer an accessibility training module to all new and existing members of the content creators' community, however, due to sheer size of the whole website (Over 50,000 pages) and the number of contributors, some of this content still may not be fully accessible, for example: 

  • Some PDFs and other documents only partially compatible with screen readers.
  • Most video content that was uploaded pre-2020, does not have captions, transcriptions, or audio descriptions 
  • some tables do not have row headers 
  • some pages have elements with poor colour contrast 
  • some heading elements are not consistent  
  • some error messages are not clearly associated with form controls 
  • Some parts of the drop down options under mega menu can be cut off under 400% zoom

You can find the details of inaccessible content below under “non-compliance with the accessibility regulations” section.  

We are constantly working on improving our website’s digital accessibility and are in the process of re-designing our website from scratch with much higher accessibility levels. Please contact us at [email protected] should you need any support at any part of your journey on our website.  

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact [email protected].

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please contact: [email protected] 

We will consider your request and get back to you in seven working days. 
 
If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call us at +44 (0) 207589 5111 or email us [email protected] for directions. 

We have installed DeafWatch transmitters across twenty-nine buildings at our campuses. 

The DeafWatch system works across multiple buildings, providing seamless but discreet day and nighttime fire alarm warnings for staff and students with a hearing impairment. Pagers are available via the College Fire Office and the College's Disability Advisory Service. 

Please contact us on 02075948000 before your planned visit to arrange suitable support for your needs.

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

Imperial College London 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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

This website is partially compliant with the  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 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

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/ and sub URLS  (pages such as .../jobs/search-jobs  and .../jobs/apply etc) non-compliances: 

At 400% zoom or on a small screen (320x256), the options in the select element container below the 'How did you find out about this job?' question are cut off. This fails 1.4.10 Reflow criteria. We are aiming to resolve this issue by 1 October 2024. 

At 400% zoom some of the options in the 'Job Type' and 'Location / Campus' select elements, such as 'Information Communication Technology Digital and Systems' and 'South Kensington and Silwood Park Campus - On site', are partly cut off. This fails 1.4.10 Reflow criteria. We are aiming to resolve this issue by 1 October 2024. 

Apply with linked In button, does not have high enough colour contrast under focused state. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion, 2.4.7 Focus visible. We are aiming to resolve this issue by 1 October 2024. 

We have now updated  our "job description" .PDF templates,  to meet WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility criteria, and started publishing new job adverts with this compliant version. However there may be a few "Job description" .PDF documents that are still showing following non-compliances, if they were published prior to 22 July 2024  : 

Missing Page title, This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion, 2.4.2 Page titled. As of 22 July 2024 all our " Job description"  .PDf documents are in the new accessible format. We are aiming to resolve this by 1 October 2024.

Missing language attribute. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion, 3.1.1 Language of Page. As of 22 July 2024 all our " Job description"  .PDf documents are in the new accessible format. We are aiming to resolve this by 1 October 2024.

Non text elements Missing Tags. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion, 1.1.1 Non-Text content. As of 22 July 2024 all our " Job description"  .PDf documents are in the new accessible format. We are aiming to resolve this by 1 October 2024.

Document missing tags. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion, 1.3.1 Info and relationships. As of 22 July 2024 all our " Job description"  .PDf documents are in the new accessible format. We are aiming to resolve this by 1 October 2024.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/giving/donate/make-your-gift/dd/ page non-compliances:

On giving/donate direct debit form "frequency of donation" drop down menu is missing a select name. The label is "Give" the user is expected to select monthly or annually. This may be confusing to some screen readers. This fails 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value criterion. we are aiming to resolve this by October 2024. 

Mega Menu (Hamburger Menu) non-compliances:

The links in submenus within the hamburger menu, such as the 'Search our courses' and 'Explore subject areas' links within the 'Courses' submenu, are no longer available at 400% zoom or on a small screen (320x256). This fails 1.4.10 Reflow criteria. We are aiming to resolve this issue by 1 October 2024.  

Disproportionate burden

N/A

Content that is 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 are not essential to providing our services. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.  

The 2.4.7  Focus Visible non-compliance on our "Apply with LinkedIn" button cannot be resolved until our new website is live (October 2024). 

When an element gets focus there should be a visible border around it. Highlighting the element that has keyboard focus or is hovered over can provide information like whether the element is interactive or the scope of that element.

We have tried getting support from LinkedIn with no success. Sadly due to LinkedIn Logo colour standards, it has not been possible to overcome this issue. However we have taken this into account in our new colour scheme, from October 2024 this button will have a dark red/burgundy border instead of navy. This will achieve high enough contrast for this button's focus visible state. 

Live video 

We do try our best to add captions to live videos as much as possible, even though live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. 

What we are doing to improve accessibility 

We are working on the findings of our latest accessibility testing and are aiming to resolve all issues listed under Non-compliance section above, Imperial College Website is undergoing a major re-design at the time of this statement review (July 2024). We are aiming to meet the WCAG 2.2 AA standards as best as we can with the new design. We will carry out an in depth accessibility audit before the launch (October 2024) and update our statement accordingly. You can find further information about our new website on our website redesign pages. In the meanwhile please contact us on [email protected] should you need any support with any part of this website. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 June 2020, reviewed on 3 August 2021, on 27 June 2022, on 08 November 2023 on 17 May 2024 and on 24 July 2024. It was last reviewed on 14 August 2024. 

This website was last tested on 20 May 2024.  The test was carried out by our website team using automated testing tools (Google Chrome Accessibility Insights for Web) as well as manual testing against WCAG 2.2 AA. 

Prior to this testing, an audit of the website was carried out by an accessibility quality assurance consultancy company named Zoonou on 8 April 2022 against WCAG 2.1 AA criteria.  

As we have over 50,000 pages on our website, we had to select a limited number of pages to be tested. We wanted to include as many pages as possible within our budget in this audit, the criteria on choosing the the pages to be tested was the level of traffic, or the pages that would have a potential to be visited by a wider audience.  

Outside of the Level A and AA test execution, user journeys have been conducted to test the website's usability against 7 different assistive technology combinations.  

URLs that were tested on our latest accessibility audit

Test Environments

  • Chrome 100
  • JAWS (desktop screen reader)  
  • Firefox 98
  • NVDA (desktop screen reader)  
  • Safari 13
  • macOS VoiceOver (desktop screen reader)  
  • Safari 15.3.1- iOS VoiceOver (mobile screen reader)  
  • Chrome 100 - TalkBack (mobile screen reader)  
  • Windows Magnifier or Apple Zoom (screen magnifier)  
  • Internet Explorer 11 - Dragon Naturally Speaking (speech recognition)