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Accessibility

ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT

Contents of this page

  1. Compatibility with the requirements

  2. Non-accessible content

  3. Creation of this accessibility statement

  4. Further steps towards improving accessibility

  5. Feedback and contact details

  6. Enforcement Proceedings

The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology strives to make its website with the URL ait.ac.at accessible in accordance with the Web Accessibility Act (WZG) to implement EU Directive 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies.

1. Compatibility with the requirements

This website is partially compatible with conformity level AA of the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – WCAG 2.1" and with the applicable harmonized European Standard EN 301 549 V2.1.2 (2018-08), respectively, due to the following incompatibilities and exceptions. The incompatibilities and exceptions are listed below.
However, the website ait.ac.at generally achieves a high level of accessibility and has been awarded the Austrian WACA bronze certificate, see https://waca.at/zertifikate 

2. Non-accessible content

The content listed below is not barrier-free accessible for the following reasons:

(a) Incompatibility with accessibility regulations:

Some few elements have no alternative text or are not meaningful (1.1.1 Non-text content). Some elements do not show sufficient colour contrast; cases in point are header navigation search, language, social media links which do not have enough contrast to the background on some pages (e.g.
https://www.ait.ac.at/karriere/diversity) with bright header image (1.4.3 Contrast and 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast). For certain screen widths, a horizontal scroll bar appears because the links in the footer do not adapt responsively (1.4.4 Resize text). The placeholder of the expanded search field is truncated in mobile use and thus difficult to operate (1.4.10 Reflow). The text area near the dates on the start page is chosen too small, therefore the text of longer titles is cut off when the test spacing is increased (1.4.12 Text Spacing).
Some links are misleadingly described or not marked as such (2.4.4 Link Purpose). Some elements, such as the social media buttons in front of the footer (.shariff-button), have no visible focus (2.4.7 Focus Visible). The mandatory field hint on the home page should be before the form, not after (3.3.1 Error Identification).

The website is compatible with current assistive technologies such as screen readers, but has some programming errors (4.1.1 Parsing and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value). Screen readers are not informed about the autocomplete suggestions at the search field (4.1.3 Status Messages).

b) Disproportionate burden:

Videos are hosted and published on the video platform YouTube. It is not possible to provide the requested audio descriptions or a textual alternative. As a result, the WCAG success criteria 1.2.3 and 1.2.5 (Audio Description or Media Alternative) are not met. We believe that a fix would impose a disproportionate burden in terms of accessibility regulations. The video in the header has no media alternative and audio description, but it is not an essential content of the website.

c) The contents do not fall within the scope of the applicable legislation:

  • Live broadcast time-based media
  • Online maps and map services (limited, alternative is offered)
  • Internal areas and external tools such as publication database, research gate or podcasts
  • Disproportionate organizational and financial burden: 
    • Many PDF documents and Office documents are not yet optimally accessible. However, we plan to ensure that our documents that are posted online in the future will be better optimised and that our editors will be trained with regard to barrier-free design of PDF documents.
    • However, much of the content of the PDFs can be found in the content section of the website which therefore provides an alternative.
    • The language designations of some terms (3.1.2 Language of Parts) are not fulfilled. However, the problem of anglicisms on the German site is not highly relevant in this case, as they are very common for an international research institution.
    • The blog with the URL ait.ac.at/blog is considered a separate website.

3. Creation of this accessibility statement:

This statement was created on 7 October 2021.
The assessment of the website's compliance with the Web Accessibility Act for the implementation of the requirements of EU Directive 2016/2102 took the form of a third-party test according to WCAG 2.1 in compliance level AA in September 2021. The home page in German and English, the search function, contact option, the AIT blog and a further 13 sub-pages were checked in the course of the WACA certification, see audit report 
Individual page contents are regularly checked by the web editors when new contents are published.

4. Further steps towards improving accessibility:

  • English terms on German pages are successively recorded in a glossary so that common screen reader programmes can read these terms correctly.
  • Upon receiving the WACA accessibility certificate, all editors of the AIT website are being trained again on the correct handling of accessibility. 
  • Subsequently, new content on the AIT website will be created in an accessible form by the trained AIT website editors.

5. Feedback and contact details:

If you notice accessibility barriers that prevent you from using our website – issues not described in this statement, deficiencies in the compliance with accessibility requirements – please let us know by email.
We will review your request and contact you as soon as possible.
Please send all messages and suggestions to AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Corporate and Marketing Communications, email: cmc(at)ait.ac.at
Please describe the problem and provide us with the URL(s) of the affected sub-page of our website.
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
Corporate and Marketing Communications department
Email: cmc(at)ait.ac.at

6. Enforcement Procedure:

If you do not receive satisfactory answers via the above contact option, you may contact the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) by means of a complaint. The FFG accepts complaints electronically via the contact form: https://www.ffg.at/form/kontaktformular-beschwerdestelle 
These complaints are reviewed by the FFG to determine whether they pertain to violations of the requirements of the Web Accessibility Act, particularly deficiencies in compliance with accessibility requirements, by the Federal Government or an entity attributable to it.
If the complaint is justified, the FFG shall issue recommendations for action to the Federal Government or the legal entities concerned and propose measures to remedy the deficiencies at hand.

Further information on the complaints procedure