Accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to the main Keele University website at www.keele.ac.uk. Other Keele websites and services may have their own accessibility statements.

This website is run by Keele University. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and are committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. For example, that means you should be able to:

• Zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
• Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• 'Skip to main content' using tab on your keyboard
• Listen to most of the website using a screen reader
• Turn off or reduce animation using your device's 'reduce motion' setting

We also aim to make the website text as easy as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. AbilityNet is a UK charity that exists to change the lives of disabled people by helping them to use digital technology at work, at home or in education.

Measures to support accessibility

We test our website for accessibility during the design and build process, and we carry out the same testing on the live site.

We use and validate against valid, semantic HTML and modern CSS for page design and layout. We support current and recent versions of the major browsers; we no longer support Internet Explorer 11.

Across the site we provide a 'Skip to main content' link, visible keyboard focus styles, minimum touch target sizes on interactive controls, and support for your device's 'reduce motion' setting, so that animations and background video are stopped or simplified if you have asked for less movement.

How accessible is our website?

Our most recent audit, completed in August 2026, returned an average Lighthouse accessibility score of 100 out of 100 across the pages tested. Lighthouse tests only a subset of accessibility requirements, so we combine automated testing with manual keyboard and screen reader checks.

We know some parts of this website aren't fully accessible:

• Some website elements may cut off text if when increased text spacing is applied
• Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• Some older videos do not have captions or transcripts
• Some legacy pages have not yet been rebuilt on our current, accessible templates
• Some parts of the third-party forms and booking tools we embed (such as checkboxes, radio controls, list boxes and combo boxes) are difficult to use just with a keyboard, or with screen readers such as JAWS and speech recognition software such as Dragon
• On some pages we use third-party embeds such as our website search, Google Maps, YouTube video and the Discover Uni course widget, which screen reader users and keyboard users can find difficult to use

What to do if you can't access parts of this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. Please contact us at support.web@keele.ac.uk if you:

• Need information on this website in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille
• Find any problems that are not listed on this page
• Think we are not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within five working days.

Enforcement procedure

If you are unhappy with the response you receive in relation to an accessibility-related issue, you can make a complaint to support.web@keele.ac.uk.

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 our website's accessibility

Keele University is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

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

1. Our August 2026 audit identified a small number of remaining minor issues on individual pages, such as link text within paragraphs that relies on colour alone to be identified as a link. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.1 (use of colour).
2. Some page elements may cut off text if increased line spacing or letter spacing is applied. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.12 (text spacing).
3. Some images in older content do not have a suitable text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We have ongoing accessibility audits, CMS staff training and published guidance, so newly published content should always meet accessibility standards. However, we cannot guarantee that all older content meets the criteria.
4. It cannot be guaranteed that all user interface components and graphical objects in older content meet the required contrast ratio. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.11 (non-text contrast). We have an audit process in place to find, check and fix these issues, and contrast is a responsibility of all our web editors.
5. It cannot be guaranteed that images of text have not been used in older content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text). As part of our regular accessibility audit, all images from the homepage down to level 3 are manually checked.
6. Keele.ac.uk contains legacy pages built on older templates, which we cannot guarantee are fully accessible. These pages are being retired or rebuilt on our current templates as part of a rolling programme. If you would like specific content from one of these pages in an accessible format, please contact us at support.web@keele.ac.uk.
7. Some videos published on or after 23 September 2020 do not have accurate edited captions, transcripts or audio description. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.2.2 (captions, prerecorded), 1.2.3 (audio description or media alternative, prerecorded) and 1.2.5 (audio description, prerecorded). We have audited our video library and are working through it to add captions and full transcripts. Any new videos we publish will have edited captions and transcripts, and audio description where visual information necessary to understand the content is not conveyed in the soundtrack.
8. Some PDF documents published on or after 23 September 2018, including some Course Information Documents on our course pages, are not fully accessible to screen reader software. For example, they may not be tagged so that headings, tables and reading order are conveyed correctly. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.1.1 (non-text content), 1.3.1 (info and relationships) and 4.1.2 (name, role, value). If you need any of these documents in an accessible format, please contact us at support.web@keele.ac.uk and we will provide one.
9. Some parts of the third-party forms and booking tools we embed (such as checkboxes, radio controls, list boxes and combo boxes) are difficult to use with screen readers such as JAWS and voice command software such as Dragon. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role, value). Because these tools are supplied and maintained by third parties, we cannot correct them directly.
10. Our website search is not fully accessible to screen reader and keyboard users. Our main site search is powered by Google Programmable Search, and our course, event and staff searches use other third-party search services, so we are limited in the changes we can make to how their results are presented.

We plan to fix the minor issues at points 1 and 2 above by 31 December 2026.

Points 3 to 8 are addressed through a rolling programme of content, document and template improvement. We aim to complete the current phase of this work by August 2027, and we will report on progress when we next review this statement.

Points 9 and 10 relate to software supplied by third parties. We report accessibility problems to our suppliers, and accessibility is formally assessed whenever these contracts are reviewed, renewed or re-tendered.

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming disproportionate burden for any part of this website.

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

1. Documents published before 23 September 2018 - Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don't meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be marked up so they are accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role, value). The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential for active administrative processes. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
2. Video published before 23 September 2020 - Some of our older videos don't have accurate edited captions or transcripts. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criteria 1.2.1 (audio-only and video-only, prerecorded), 1.2.2 (captions, prerecorded), 1.2.3 (audio description or media alternative, prerecorded) and 1.2.5 (audio description, prerecorded). The regulations do not apply to prerecorded video published before 23 September 2020. However, while these videos are not subject to the legislation, we have carried out an audit of all our videos and have begun a process of updating captions and adding full transcripts.
3. Online maps - On some pages we embed Google Maps, which screen reader users and keyboard users can find difficult to use. Online maps and mapping services are not within the scope of the accessibility regulations. Where we use a map to help you find a location, we also provide the address and travel information as text on the page.
4. Third-party content we do not fund or control - Undergraduate course pages display the Discover Uni widget (previously known as UniStats), which we are required to show and which is built and supplied externally. Third-party content that we neither fund nor develop, and which is not under our control, is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations. The same course information is available from Discover Uni directly.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared in January 2020. It was last reviewed and updated in August 2026.

This website was last tested for accessibility in August 2026 by Keele University. The next full review is scheduled for August 2027.

Our tests are carried out on a sample of more than 100 pages, including our website scaffolding, by:

• Unlighthouse, which runs Google Lighthouse, which audits every page in our sample against the automated accessibility checks provided by axe-core, the same testing engine used by many industry accessibility tools
• Manual testing, including keyboard-only navigation and screen reader checks, because automated tools cannot detect every accessibility barrier
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider, which checks missing image alternative text, as well as broken links
• Wave.webaim.org Chrome plugin

In January 2020, we also had a sample of key pages tested, both manually and automatically, for accessibility by the Digital Accessibility Centre.

We chose the sample of web pages to test by using analytics data (to test our most visited pages), as well as a random sample, and our website scaffolding (as mentioned above).

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have a rolling programme of updating content and templates in accordance with the guidelines set out by the WCAG.

We continually monitor the accessibility compliance of our site and have made the fixing and improvement of the site part of our daily digital housekeeping activities. Our most recent audit returned an average automated accessibility score of 99%, and the minor issues that remain are scheduled for correction.

Recent improvements include moving our testing to WCAG 2.2 AA, adding minimum touch target sizes to interactive controls, honouring your device's 'reduce motion' setting, improving keyboard and focus behaviour in menus, accordions and filters, and adding pause controls to background video.

All CMS Web Champions (editors) have access to our website style guide which includes guidance on how to produce accessible web pages and content. This guidance is reviewed on a regular basis.