Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to the V&A Mused website that is run by the Board of Trustees of the V&A. The website has been developed independently of vam.ac.uk and is hosted as a sub-directory at https://www.vam.ac.uk/mused

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

change colours, contrast levels and fonts via browser or plug in

zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen

navigate the website using just a keyboard

navigate the website using speech recognition software

listen to the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. 

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

How accessible this website is

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

some labels are not displayed for keyboard only users
It is not currently possible to change colours and contrast levels
animation cannot yet be paused using the Reduce Motion settings on your device
keyboard focus appears to be in the wrong place when using search

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille or you would like to ask anything or tell us anything about the accessibility of our websites:

email hello@vam.ac.uk 

call +44 (0)20 7942 2000

We want to improve our web accessibility and we welcome your feedback. We will respond in no more than 21 days in line with our Comments and Feedback Policy but hope to do it more quickly than that in most cases.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please email digital_media_products@vam.ac.uk

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, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

Compliance status

This website is partially 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

Some of the quizzes are based on the contents of images. Not all alternative text is sufficient that screen reader users could take part in the quizzes. This fails to meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We are in discussion about the best way to resolve this. 

The website includes text nested within images, rather than as included within HTML markup. This means that users will not be able to customise the fonts or text through resizing or changing font colours. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text).

We are in discussion about the best way to resolve this. 

Video content containing descriptive text over video is not audio described. This is inaccessible to blind and visually impaired users. This fails to meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.5 (audio description (prerecorded)).

When we create new video content we’ll make sure our videos meet accessibility standards.

In some cases the background and foreground colours have not both been set in the CSS. This may make it difficult to read text when users have overridden the settings of the user agent. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast (minimum)), 1.4.6 (contrast (enhanced)), and 1.4.8 (visual presentation). 

We plan to resolve this by January 2023 

Some content is only triggered by mouse-over events, so people using only a keyboard to navigate cannot access this information This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (keyboard). 

We plan to resolve this by January 2023 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are committed to inclusive design. This means that each new component that we make will be built to the highest WCAG standards we can test regularly with tools such as pa11y. We also continue our commitment to testing our new designs and product features with a broad and diverse range of audiences.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2023. It was last reviewed on 12 December 2023. 

This website was last tested in September 2023. The test was carried out by Accessible by Design.

We used a combination of automated and manual assessment to audit the accessibility of this website. We chose a representative sample of pages to manually assess. We ensured that each quiz type and page type has been included within the scope of manual assessment. We used Sortsite to scan all the pages within the Mused site.