Accessibility on Imperial College London main website

This statement applies to content published on the main 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 300% without the text spilling off the screen 
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard 
  • navigate most of the website using 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: 

  • Many PDFs and other documents are not fully 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 poor colour contrast 
  • some heading elements are not consistent 
  • some images do not have suitable alternative text 
  • some buttons are not correctly identified 
  • some error messages are not clearly associated with form controls 

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, please contact us at accessibility@imperial.ac.uk should you need any support at any part of your journey on our website.  

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please contact: accessibility@imperial.ac.uk 

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 accessibility@imperial.ac.uk for directions. 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website 

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this statement or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact: accessibility@imperial.ac.uk.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person 

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.  

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. 

Complaince status

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 that is not accessible is outlined below with details of where it fails the success criteria.

View our current list of non accessible content

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents 

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word 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.  

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 update (November 2023). 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 testing before the launch and update our statement accordingly. In the meanwhile please contact us on accessbility@imperial.ac.uk should you need any support with any part of this website. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement/

This statement was prepared on 10 June 2020, updated on 3 August 2021 and on 27 June 2022. It was last updated on 08/11/2023.

This website was last tested on 8 April 2022. The test was carried out by external accessibility quality assurance consultancy company Zoonou.  

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.  

A total of 33 pages have been tested against the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards. Outside of the Level A and AA test execution, user journeys have been conducted to test the platform’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)