Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for LEAPS (www.leapsonline.org)

Accessibility statement for LEAPS

This is the website accessibility statement in line with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is run by LEAPS, a widening participation programme which is hosted at The University of Edinburgh. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Zoom in most content up to 500% with reflow and without loss of content
  • Using your browser settings, change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • Use the website without encountering any flashing, scrolling or moving text
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of Job Access with Speech (JAWS), NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and VoiceOver)
  • Navigate to most of the content by keyboard only
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software (including Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
  • Use the website without encountering any time limits

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

 

Customising the website

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible.

AbilityNet - My Computer My Way

With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website using your browser settings to make it easier to read and navigate.

Additional information on how to customise our website appearance

 

How accessible this website is

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

  • Some text size is small
  • Some colour contrasts could be improved
  • Spellcheck options are not offered in all browsers
  • Tabbing via keyboard is not always logical and/or consistent, and does not always meet contrast focus requirements
  • Some parts may not be fully compatible with screen readers
  • Not all media will have a transcript or have human corrected captions
  • Not all videos have audio description
  • Not all images have suitable alternative text
  • Some headings and heading levels are missed
  • Some pop-ups may appear, or links may open a new tab without notice
  • Some links may be indicated by colour only or lack meaningful hypertext
  • Some older PDF documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software

 

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille please contact the LEAPS / Universities Collection team Helpline by emailing leaps@ed.ac.uk or phone 0131 650 4676

We’ll consider your request and aim to get back to you within 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re 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 accessibility requirements please let us know: by emailing leaps@ed.ac.uk.

We’ll consider your request and aim to get back to you within 5 working days.

 

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 please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly.

Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

 

Contacting us by phone using British Sign Language

British Sign Language service

Contact Scotland BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates from 8.00am to 12.00am, 7 days a week.

British Sign Language Scotland service details

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

We are committed to making this 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 (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

The full guidelines are available at:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard

 

Non accessible content

We are working towards solving these problems and expect several improvements by November 2026. The site is fully within our control.

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

Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria:

  • Not all non-text content has a text alternative.
  • There are some empty headings and links
  • The way the content is presented affects its meaning, and a correct reading sequence is not programmatically determined
  • Links in the text should be clearly identifiable (color alone is not enough to distinguish links from the surrounding text).
  • There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours especially where the text size is small. For example, table captions have insufficient colour contrast between foreground and background.
  • Information is conveyed as an image of text rather than as text itself so that it's not compatible with screen readers and other assistive technology.
    • 1.4.5 - Images of text
    • This content has been significantly reduced. We are running accessibility workshops from 2023 to help address this issue further.
  • Most content can be magnified up to 500%, but the library chat left-side menu cannot be magnified without the content being cut.
  • Most tooltips disappear as soon as the cursor moves or may not be accessible by other means than mouse. Also, tooltips are not always present for all icons and images.
  • There are some occurrences of badly formatted links either with text that is not descriptive enough, e.g., click here or have the full web address , e.g., https://www. rather than formatted link text. This is rare though. We are currently working to eliminate these link issues.
  • Headings or heading levels are sometimes missed
  • It is not always clear where the user has reached via keyboard navigation.
  • Pop ups appear without the user being alerted when the user interacts with an item and some links open new tabs.
  • User errors are either not automatically detected or suggestions for correction are not given.
  • Not all content may be robust enough that it can be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
  • While we have a 'Skip to content' link on every page when new users access the website, they will receive our cookie consent banner at the top of the page. This can't be skipped over as it's important to get consent for cookies to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations. We do not believe this to be an accessibility issue but it does mean that the site will fail some automated accessibility tests. Once a user has chosen their level of consent, they will then be able to access the 'Skip to content' link.
  • Not all our Portable Document Files (PDF) and Word documents meet accessibility standards. From May 2020 onwards we are running a series of workshops and campaigns to highlight this issue and train users in how to audit and then improve the accessibility of these documents.

We aim to improve our websites accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. See the section below ('What we're doing to improve accessibility') on how we are improving our site accessibility. 

 

Disproportionate burden

We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.

 

How we tested this website

The website was last tested using both automated and manual methods. 

The site was tested on a PC, primarily using Microsoft Edge alongside Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Some testing also completed on Apple Mac.

Recent world-wide usage levels survey for different screen readers and browsers shows that Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge are increasing in popularity and Google Chrome is now the favoured browser for screen readers:

WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey

The aforementioned three browsers have been used in certain questions for reasons of breadth and variety.

We ran automated testing using AXE browser extension (for Google Chrome) and then manual testing that included:

  • Spell check functionality;
  • Scaling using different resolutions and reflow;
  • Options to customise the interface (magnification, font, background colour, etc);
  • Keyboard navigation and keyboard traps;
  • Data validation;
  • Warning of links opening in new tab or window;

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We will continue to address and make adequate improvements to the accessibility issues highlighted. Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place by November 2026.

While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website.

 

This statement was last updated in June 2025.

This article was published on