Third Light accessibility statement

Using this website

The Third Light media website is run by 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 Third Light website:

How accessible is our website? 

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

The supplier has issued the following statement regarding accessibility of Third Light, and has stated this statement would be as far as they are prepared to go with meeting accessibility standards:

"Third Light is built on normal good practice, particularly use of alt tags for all images and the ability to customise the colour palette. However, we do not maintain a formal level of accessibility certification having experienced difficulty with this standard related to serving predominantly visual assets. When working with the Guide Dogs for the Blind, we were able to explore usability with a user having screen reader software, and he provided informal feedback that the application was adequate for his needs."

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 University of Derby’s Design Team directly:

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

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in one to two 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

Not all elements display an appropriate alt-text. Text alternatives are a primary way for making information accessible as they can be rendered through any sensory modality to match the needs of the user. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 Non-Text Content (Minimum).

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).

Some of the text linked to boxes requiring user input doesn’t have a label associated with it, so the text isn’t visible to people using a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 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.

Disproportionate burden

The Third Light media server website is an important addition to the University of Derby’s data systems to effectively manage the University’s digital assets. We have been having ongoing conversations with the supplier and have presented the requirements of the WCAG 2.1 and our need to comply with these regulations. Third Light has stated “it’s not on our roadmap to look at accessibility”, though we will be working with our supplier to resolve as many non-compliance issues as possible. We will ensure new accessibility requirements are requisite criteria when the system comes up for review.  

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

Many 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 (name, role value). 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. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

In the meantime, you can always contact us to request a copy that is accessible for you 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 7 September 2020. The test was carried out on a sample set of pages by our supplier, Third Light. 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 18 September 2020. It was last updated on 18 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 18 September 2020. We are logging every change we make to this page.

  • 18 September 2020: statement first published