Future Lawyer Blog

Accessibility

Accessibility Statement for Future Lawyer Blog

Site introduction

This accessibility statement applies to the website “Future Lawyer Blog” under the domain blog.lawbore.net. It belongs to the family of websites run by Lawbore at the City Law School, City, University of London. There are several websites in this family, namely: Lawbore Directory, Lawbore City Hub, Lawbore Future Lawyer, TLDR Gallery, City Law School ♥ Mooting, and Learnmore. We have written the accessibility statements individually for each one as they are based on a variety of technologies and are of differing ages and complexities.

Overview of accessibility goals

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. Our aim is for students with disabilities to be able to access and easily use all information and functionality on the site that is useful for their studies. For example, this means you should be able to:

  • modify visual contrast levels and colours for readability
  • navigate through the site using ARIA landmarks and semantic headings
  • zoom both text-size and whole screen 200% without the text overlapping or spilling over
  • navigate the website in a sensible order using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to the website using a screen-reader
  • override some basic text styling on the page body to improve readability
  • receive intelligent screen-reader feedback and labels on most visually interactive components

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We have made many adjustments to this site so that the essential functionality is available to users with assistive technologies. This includes making the site workable with keyboard only, readable with a screen-reader, and allowing styles to be added to the page body to override most default text rendering.

We believe after testing that the site meets all the required accessibility standards. If you encounter any issues, please contact us with details so we can address them.

How we tested this website for accessibility

We have undertaken an in-house assessment of accessibility of each of the Lawbore family of websites. This was conducted by the original website developer in consultation with the staff responsible for the concepts and content.

We believe we have done a thorough assessment in identifying problem areas. We used several different testing modalities and tools, including Chromevox and NVDA screenreaders, and AXE and WAVE automated testers. We also undertook many hours of manual testing. As a result of this we have been able to address or suggest workarounds for many issues. Some of the more difficult issues we will be addressing in the near future.

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need are experiencing difficulties accessing the information on this website and need it in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact Emily Allbon, Senior Law Lecturer at :

  • Email (preferred): e.allbon@city.ac.uk
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7040 3075
  • Twitter: @lawbore

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 3-5 working days.

In the footer of this site you’ll also find the full contact details of the Law School which is responsible this site. You may also contact us in person or by telephone there.

Invitation for feedback

We remain committed to improving the accessibility of these sites wherever any shortfalls are made known to us. We invite both informal and formal feedback from any user experiencing accessibility problems and we welcome a dialogue with anyone affected.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact Emily Allbon at:

  • Email (preferred): e.allbon@city.ac.uk
  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7040 3075
  • Twitter: @lawbore

We have the capability to respond quickly to any technical issues that fall under maintenance agreements with the website developer. If we are unable to immediately solve a technical accessibility issue we will endeavour to provide you with an accessible alternative version of the same information, if applicable.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The City Law School is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance Status

This website is fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

What we’ve done already to improve accessibility

  • We’ve already done much ARIA labelling of items, widgets and landmarks, and will continue to add to these.
  • We’ve added in some basic hidden “skip ahead” links and will be improving these in scope and presentation over the coming year.
  • We have adapted the colour scheme to be compliant with suggested visual contrast levels.

What we will do in the near future to improve accessibility

  • We are looking for ways to further improve the accessibility of this site and welcome your suggestions and feedback.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September 2020. It was last revised on 22 September 2020.

This website was last tested on 23 September 2020. The test was carried out in-house in co-operation with the original website developer.

How we tested the Lawbore websites

The number, size, age and technical variety of the Lawbore family of websites – six large sites containing many hundreds of pages in total, and developed incrementally over a period of 17 years – meant that outsourcing a full assessment of all sites to a specialist service would have been financially prohibitive. Within the budget limitations for these websites we have combined a detailed in-house testing regimen for the all the commonly-used areas with a limited testing regimen for the infrequently used or supplemental areas.

For instance, on the Lawbore Directory we exhaustively tested and adapted the main directory functionality but did only basic testing and adaptation on the “report a broken link” dialog and Emily’s Twitter feed. This approach is in accordance with the government advice for large sites of limited means, where in-depth testing and adaptation of everything would represent a disproportionate burden.

Where many pages were similar and based on the same web template, we tested only two or three examples of them.