Mercury accessibility statement

Using this website

The Mercury website is run by Derby Student Residences Ltd on behalf of the University of Derby. We want as many people as possible to be able to use the site and are committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. For example, that means you should be able to:

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. AbilityNet is a UK charity that exists to change the lives of disabled people by helping them to use digital technology at work, at home or in education.

Measures to support accessibility 

We are using the following measures to ensure accessibility of the University of Derby Mercury website:

How accessible is our website? 

We know some parts of the Mercury website aren't fully accessible:

We are currently addressing these by working with the supplier to ensure that all the above points are addressed as soon as possible.

What to do if you can't access parts of this website or have a complaint 

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.  

If you have any issues with inaccessible content or are unable to obtain an accessible version, or you feel the need to complain about our site and content accessibility, please contact us in the first instance via our central feedback form.

Submit an accessibility support request

You can also contact the Student Living team directly:

You can contact us about any issues, for example, if you:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in two to five working days.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint after following the process set out above, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about our website's accessibility

The University of Derby is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The Content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

While text can be zoomed or magnified, it is not possible for users to modify text spacing or line height. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12 (Text Spacing).  

Some of the website pages do not have sufficient contrast between the foreground and background colours. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum)).

Not every form element on the website has an appropriate label. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1 (Information and Relationships) and 4.1.2 (Name, Role and Value).

Not every page has at least one mechanism for a user to bypass navigation and jump straight to the content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks).

Not all iframe and frame elements contain a non-empty title attribute. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks).

Not every element on the page with an ID attribute has a unique ID attribute value. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).

Not every focusable element on the page with an active ID has a unique value. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).

Not every ARIA ID value is unique. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).

Some ARIA-hidden elements contain focusable elements. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1 (Information and Relationships) and 4.1.2 (Name, Role and Value).

We are working with the supplier to address and resolve all of the areas of non-compliance as soon as possible. When we publish new content we’ll make sure it meets accessibility standards.

Disproportionate burden

At present, there is nothing we have found that could be considered a ‘disproportionate burden’. 

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Some of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2. The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential for active administration purposes relating to tasks we perform as a Public Body.

However, 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. We are aware of the accessibility regulations for the PDFs and Word documents published on our website after September 2020, and we are working with our supplier to ensure we resolve any issues with these.

In the meantime, you can always contact us to request a copy that is accessible for you at studentliving-housingteam@derby.ac.uk and we will do our best to make this available without delay. 

Additional accessibility considerations

At present, we’re not aware of any additional accessibility considerations for this platform but we will monitor and update this to reflect any changes.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 21 September 2020. The test was carried out on a sample set of pages by the Derby Student Residence team. These tests were completed using the Accessibility Insights for Web add-on, testing in Google Chrome.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are working with the supplier to address and resolve all of the areas of non-compliance. When we publish new content, we will make sure it meets accessibility standards.

We have a rolling programme of updating content in accordance with the guidelines set out by the WCAG. 

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last updated on 22 September 2020.

Website accessibility queries 

As previously mentioned, please contact us in the first instance via our contact information.

We first prepared this statement on 22 September 2020. We are logging every change we make to this page.

  • 14 October, 2020: statement first published