We want everyone who visits the MDX Minds website to feel welcome and find the experience rewarding, going above and beyond the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. You should be able to:
We also try to make the content as simple as possible to understand, with plain English and clear language.
To help us make the MDX Minds website a positive place for everyone, we’ve been using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities, and user friendly for everyone.
The guidelines have three levels of accessibility (A, AA and AAA). We’ve chosen Level AA as the target for the MDX Minds website.
We are working hard to achieve our goal of Level AA accessibility, but we realise there are some areas that still need improving. The following information explains where we are falling short, and what we are doing to improve.
We intend to go through all images flagged as missing an alt text and provide an appropriate alt text for each.
We know that some of our iFrames are missing a title, and are going through these to add an appropriate title to each.
We are working with our content management system providers to ensure our templates are built correctly. This includes use of proper headings and nesting, WAI-ARIA labelling, and working functionality.
Where links are identified by colour only, we are looking to add underlines or other visual cues. Where we wish to use colour only, for aesthetic branding purposes, we will change the hex code to make sure there is sufficient contrast.
On some pages, the keyboard focus is not clearly visible on every element. We are working to introduce a template where all elements have a clearly visible focus.
We know some of our branding colours are not totally accessible. We are going to look into better hex codes and bigger text sizes to ensure all our text is readable.
Currently there is no way to skip past repeated content to a page’s main, unique content. We are working to provide a heading for each block of content that is repeated on multiple web pages, to ensure this can be navigated more freely.
Our “Related blogs” form input does not have required labelling. We are working with our providers to label this function correctly.
We may sometimes have third party content or functionality on our website. This may include:
Where we are legally required to feature third party content, we cannot reasonably accept responsibility for ensuring it meets accessibility standards. However, for all content we have control over or have otherwise chosen to include, including that which we have paid for, we are obliged to work towards ensuring this content is accessible as possible. We are embedding accessibility into our procurement processes, meaning it is a necessary part of any contract for digital work.
We often use other applications to create official Middlesex University content. For example:
We must make sure our own content is as accessible as possible (for example, by making sure any video we upload to YouTube has appropriate subtitled, captions and audio description). However, we do not have influence over the accessibility of the platform itself (for example, the YouTube video player functionality).
Our University Accessibility Working Group has established a roadmap of continuous improvement to ensure as much content as possible is accessible by September 2020. Beyond this deadline, we will continue to improve accessibility wherever possible, by making changes as outlined above.
We test MDX Minds weekly using an automated tool that scans every page for problems (Siteimprove). The reports are checked at least weekly by the web team, and we aim to fix high priority issues within one week of identification.
We also conduct frequent manual testing, to pick up errors that an automated scan cannot identify.
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please email accessibility@mdx.ac.uk.
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please email accessibility@mdx.ac.uk.
If you have contacted us about an accessibility problem but you feel that this has not been dealt with satisfactorily, we want to know.
The first stage would be to raise your concern informally. The aim of this stage is to achieve a quick and easy solution for you. It would be appropriate to take the concern through the relevant contact listed above for reporting an accessibility problem.
If, after this, we have not dealt with your concern satisfactorily, you can take it through to a formal complaint. See the Middlesex University policies page for more information on making a complaint.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations in the UK. If you are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
This statement was created on 23 January 2020. It was last revised on 6 April 2020.