Website accessibility

Turner Sims aims to make its website accessible to as many people as possible. We regularly review the site and welcome feedback to help us improve its accessibility and usability.

Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to content published on https://www.turnersims.co.uk/. The website is run by Turner Sims, part of the University of Southampton. It is important to us that as many people as possible can use the site. Find out: 

  • how you can access our website in different ways
  • what we’re doing to improve this website’s accessibility
  • how accessible the website is
  • what to do if you have problems accessing the website
  • when we prepared and reviewed this accessibility statement
  • technical information about the website’s accessibility

Accessing our website in different ways

You should be able to use most https://www.turnersims.co.uk/

  • with a keyboard instead of a mouse
  • with a screen reader or speech recognition software
  • while zooming in to 300%
  • with changed fonts, colours or contrast

Get advice on making your device easier to use from AbilityNet, a charity that helps organisations be more inclusive.

Improving this website’s accessibility

To improve accessibility of the Turner Sims website (https://www.turnersims.co.uk/) we:

  • make accessibility a priority in our procurement processes
  • appoint website developers who are trained in accessibility and have built sites to the highest accessibility standards
  • regularly review and update content
  • aim to provide appropriate alternative text for all images
  • ensure interactive elements have changes of style when hovered over with a mouse or focused on using keyboard navigation
  • check foreground and background colours to ensure sufficient contrast
  • write content clearly, concisely and in plain English without jargon
  • use headings in a logical and ordinate way
  • make ‘calls to action’ easy to find
  • use symbols (e.g.>) in context and for their semantic use
  • ensure all forms have submit buttons and appropriate responses in case of success or failure
  • remove or replace old content that is not useful and/or usable

How accessible the website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. These include:

  • when registering for an account or logging into your account screen readers aren’t informed that the email field is required.
  • if an error occurs when entering details, screen readers aren’t informed an error has occurred.
  • our website has been built so you can use keyboard for navigating but there might be a few areas where it could be improved. You may not be able to access all content by using the keyboard alone (e.g. some forms delivered through 3rd party iframes).
  • the ticket purchase journey through our ticketing system, Spektrix (provided by 3rd party iframe) may not be fully accessible. We are working with our ticketing partner to try to improve this. If you have issues with purchasing tickets online you can contact the Box Office on 023 8059 5151.
  • ticket confirmation is sent to our customers by email but also stored as a PDF in their account (which is sitting in our ticketing system Spektrix). We are aware that the PDF in the account section is not accessible. As an alternative, customers can request a paper copy of the ticket from our Box Office on 023 8059 5151.

If you have problems accessing the website

Ask for information in a different format

If you need information on this website in a different format like a tagged PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please: 

Email turnersims@soton.ac.uk

Call 023 8059 5151

 

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we handle your complaint about accessing the website or alternatives, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). Call EASS advisors on: +44 (0)808 800 0082. 

When this accessibility statement was prepared and reviewed

This statement was prepared on 28 October 2024. It was last reviewed on 28 October 2024.

This website was last tested on 28 October 2024.

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

Testing compliance

We took a sample of pages across the site that contained the essential functionality of the site and that reflected typical user journeys and the varying technologies in use and tested them against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1.

This test sample included: the homepage, landing pages and a cross-section of content pages containing unique features.

Each page was tested and checked with different browsers.

We used several tools to assist in the audit of our website:

  • SiteImprove
  • Silktide
  • AxeDevTools
  • WebAim
  • Wave accessibility evaluation tool
  • Chrome Screenreader
  • W3C Markup Validation Service
  • Adobe Acrobat Accessibility checker

Following the audit we have fixed several issues and have a programme of work to resolve those that remain.

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

Some content types are outside the scope of the regulations. We aren’t required to fix:

  • PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to our services
  • interactive maps, as long as an alternative is given
  • live video streams with captions
  • content on externall sites that we link to

We have replaced old PDF content with more accessible content types and all new content will be produced to meet accessibility guidelines.

Disproportionate burden

Video and audio content

All videos commissioned by Turner Sims have captions and some form of audio description (whether text transcripts or audio-based). However, some externally produced videos that are embedded in this website from elsewhere may not have captions and/or audio descriptions. As we do not own this content it is technically impossible to implement these features unilaterally.

We have assessed the process for making the external videos accessible, and consider that the impact of fully meeting the requirements is too much for Turner Sims to manage at this stage. Making all videos accessible would be a ‘disproportionate burden’, using up a large amount of time and money to work with dozens of touring musicians and agents to ensure content they supply is accessible.  

We will continue to make strong recommendations to all artists and agents that any video and audio content they supply is provided with captions and some form of audio description. 

Third-party content

Some external sites we link to might not be fully accessible. We are not responsible for the accessibility of external content and sites. However, where there is a choice, we will always choose the most accessible options.  

We often do not have control over the accessibility of third-party services and content across our website. This includes things like: 

  • Forms
  • Ticket purchase journeys

We’re working with vendors and reviewing our procurement processes to ensure as many as possible can use these services. 

We ask third-party suppliers to provide links to their Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). They can do this using the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). The template supports Section 508, EN 301 549 (PDF), and W3C/WAI WCAG. 

We support the searchBOX project, which provides a database of accessibility information about third-party vendors across the public sector. You can search for third-party accessibility statements using the free search BOX finder tool.