All University websites should publish an accessibility statement, which should reflect your audit of the site and where it does or doesn’t meet requirements. GDS has provided a sample accessibility statement template for use which meets the new requirements and also aims to provide helpful information to users of a website, service or app. The statement should:
- be written clearly so that non-technical users can understand
- be explicit what site(s) the statement covers
- clearly state whether your website or mobile app is ‘fully’, ‘partially’ or ‘not’ compliant with accessibility standards
- if it’s not fully compliant, identify which parts of your website or mobile app do not currently meet accessibility standards and why (for example, because they are exempt or it would be a disproportionate burden to fix things)
- tell users how they can get alternatives to content that’s not accessible to them
- tell users how to contact you to report accessibility problems - and a link to the website that they can use if they’re not happy with your response.
For any issues you identify, you should list:
- What the accessibility problems are
- which of the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria the problem fails on
- when you plan to fix the problem
