Gower College Swansea

Accessibility Statement

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

In this report:

• How to get the most from our website

• Compliance status

• Non accessible content

• Preparation of this accessibility statement

• Feedback and contact information

• Enforcement procedure

How to get the most from our website

Gower College Swansea has been actively working to improve the user experience of our website before our redesign and relaunch in late 2023.

In the meantime, here are ways we have worked to give you as accessible an experience as we can. We make some suggestions about browser plugins in the section below.

These are made in good faith to enhance user experience, but you use them at your own risk. The college cannot take responsibility for unforeseen problems, and we cannot provide technical support.

Text to speech

if you prefer listening to information rather than reading it, you can use the Microsoft Edge browser. The built in text to speech will read almost all the text content on our website.

Magnification

The site can be zoomed up to 400% and content will reflow to fit the page. You do not have to scroll left and right to read it. Just use the CTRL and + key to zoom in or CTRL and - to zoom out. On a Mac use the Command + and - key instead. The website responds well on desktop and on mobile. New content is created using responsive templates to give you a consistent magnification experience.

Did you know?
You can also magnify text by changing the default text size in the browser under your browser settings. This can give up to 200% magnification and still remain usable.

Navigation and keyboard accessibility

Getting around the site

You can navigate the site in three ways.

• A consistent top-level navigation (white text on deep pink).

• Breadcrumb trails are available for some deeper level pages.

• Using the search box.

All 3 options can be accessed by keyboard or mouse.

Getting around a page

The website pages use header tags and labelled content regions to give pages a helpful structure. Users can benefit by:

• using browser plugins like HeadingsMap for Chrome to swiftly navigate the page,

• using inbuilt screen reader keystrokes to browse by heading levels,

• using "Skip links" to let you bypass repetitive navigation blocks.

Keyboard access

All parts of the website can be navigated using standard keystrokes. The tab order is logical, and the currently focused item is visually highlighted.

For example:

• Tab moves forward through active elements (e.g., hyperlinks). Shift Tab moves back,

• Enter confirms selections,

• Arrow keys move through options.

Colours

We have improved the colour contrasts on most of the site, but a few issues remain (see Non-Accessible Content below). You can tweak your own colour backgrounds in your browser settings or with plugins like ScreenShader for Chrome.

If you prefer higher contrasts, this can be achieved using the accessibility settings in your computer or browser plugins like HighContrast for Chrome.

Multimedia

For many people, videos are more effective ways of understanding information. We use videos on many pages. We endeavour to ensure these are captioned with accurate captions.

The video player on the page can be operated using either a mouse or keyboard. The subtitling button is visible on the bottom right of the video once the video is playing. This can be toggled on or off.

Images

Images have appropriate alternative text descriptions for screenreader users. This includes ensuring decorative images are ignored.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.