How we tested swansea.ac.uk
A selection of sample pages of swansea.ac.uk was audited. The pages were selected to try and mimic students and staff usage:
- Supporting and inform prospective students about the university and courses available, their user journey was primarily tested.
- Support and inform prospective staff. This meant the job vacancies pages were tested.
- General Public reading
The website is built using a content management system and each page uses content pods that’s style and HTML markup are repeated across the site. So, any non-compliance found on one page would be repeated on a page using the same pod. This method was concluded as the best way to effectively audit and identify any barriers in the time available for this process.
Sample pages included in the manual and automated review supported by evaluation tools were as follows:
- Landing Page
- Course A-Z
- Course Page
- Search Results
- Disability Assessment Page
- Undergraduate “Keep in touch” Form
- Prospectus Page
- Jobs Vacancies Page
- Jobs Vacancy Detail Page
- News Press Office Page
- Virtual Tour
Audit Process
The internal audit on sample pages have been subjected to the following process:
- Automated review support by a selection of tools.
- A manual review based WCAG Checklist and supported by auditing tools.
- A manual Review using VoiceOver Screen Reader examining areas of navigation, interaction, time limits and error recovery.
The audits were performed on Apple Mac and iphone and Android phone.
Why we tested like this
The audit process was conducted by our internal usability specialist, as we do not have a dedicated accessibility resource. This approach was decided upon based on the size of the website, time, resources and funding the organization had available at the time.
The full accessibility test report is available on request.
How we monitor accessibility
A fully automated website audit is also done remotely on weekly basis. The test is carried out by Site Improve https://siteimprove.com/en-gb/accessibility/. This approach produces allow us to monitor overall accessibility of the website and target pages with issues to be addressed.