Accessibility

University of Galway Accessibility Statement

University of Galway is dedicated to meeting the needs of people with disabilities, and recognises the importance of complying with accessibility standards. We also recognise the challenge and benefits of creating a Web site that focuses not only on complying with standards, but on delivering an excellent online experience to the widest possible audience, including older people and users with disabilities.

This accessibility statement applies to the University of Galway website and mobile application and as far as possible, we aim that the Web site is:

• technically accessible, in that it is possible for all users to access all information and functionality;
• equally usable, in that it is not prohibitively difficult or time consuming for users with disabilities to carry out normal tasks;
• capable of being adapted or configured by individual users to meet their specific needs and preferences;
• capable of interfacing with appropriate, widely available assistive technologies employed by users.

Standards compliance

As a minimum standard, all pages are designed to meet all Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, Level A & Level AA Success Criteria, the target rating which public sector bodies should achieve. We also aim to achieve as many success critera from level AAA as practical in the design and implementation of this Web site.

The Web site uses structured semantic markup. h1 tags are used for main titles. h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 tags are used for subtitles.

The Web site uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for visual layout. This ensures that content is perfectly linearised and improves performance on a wide range of browsers and other user agents.

An accessibility audit was carried out on the templates used to build the site. These validated to a high level of compliance. Weekly automated checks are carried out to identify any accessibility issues, that may be introduced through day-to-day content edits, and work is ongoing to resolve any such issues. Not all pages on this site are fully compliant with the aforementioned guidelines, due to these as-of-yet unresolved accessibility issues.

Maintaining accessibility

To help deliver and maintain an accessible website, the University of Galway has created internal guidelines to guide Web administrators and authors in the creation of accessible Web content.  These guidelines cover issues such as

• Creating user friendly Web content
• Writing meaningful alternative text
• Creating accessible tables
• Creating accessible link phrases.
• Content authors receive training to raise awareness of accessibility issues.

Recite Me is cloud based software we use to improve the accessibility of our website.  The software provides visual customisation tools, reading aids, automatic translation and read-aloud features. This allows our users to view and navigate our website in a way that works best for them.  To access the Recite Me Accessibility Toolbar, click on the Accessibility & Language option on the Quick Links (Maroon) Ribbon at the very top of University of Galway webpages. There is a user guide available by clicking on the Handbook icon in the toolbar: 

Non-accessible content

We are working continually to improve the accessibility on the site, please see below some areas which may currently cause an issue:

• Not all images have appropriate alt text
• Not all documents are fully accessible, in particular pdfs.
• Not all video content have captions/transcripts available
• Not all tables have identified headers to improve accessibility

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was last reviewed on May 26, 2023. We monitor the accessibility of this site using multiple checkers, including SilkTide (audits sample webpages monthly) and the NDA's Axe Monitor, which performs a weekly audit on a random subset of webpages.

Reporting of accessibility issues, feedback and contact information

We are working hard to ensure our website fully complies with the guidelines mentioned above. We understand that issues may arise and if any user would like to provide feedback on any of our webpages they can contact the us and we will endeavour to fix any issues identified as quickly as possible.  You can contact the Web Team at webteam@universityofgalway.ie.  

If you are not happy with our response and would like to make a complaint please contact the Access Officer (under the Disability Act 2005), specify that the issue is in relation to Accessibility on the Web and provide the web address of the pages which contain the issue. We will need your full contact details so that we can communicate with you and confirm receipt of your complaint. Once we receive a complaint we will investigate the issue and respond to the complainant accordingly.