Information on accessibility

Accessibility statement for www.univie.ac.at

This page declares the accessibility of the University of Vienna's websites for people with disabilities. Further information on digital accessibility

Contact for Feedback

 

Accessibility status of this website

This University of Vienna website was completely redesigned in July 2025. Accessibility was a key concern during the technical and editorial redesign. Nevertheless, errors cannot be ruled out, especially in the course of a relaunch.

This website is partially compliant with the guidelines for accessible web content due to the incompatibilities and exceptions outlined below.

Scope

Domain: univie.ac.at (main page of the University of Vienna)

Operator: University of Vienna

The accessibility statement for other websites of the University of Vienna that have not yet been converted can be found here.

The assessment is based on a review by an external specialist agency (WIENFLUSS digital.accessibility.solutions).

The last review was carried out on 23 July 2025.

Non-accessible content

The following deficiencies were identified during the review:

  • When using a screen reader, the cookie banner is not focused at the top of the page. Keyboard users can navigate beyond the cookie banner to the page. The focus order determines which elements of a page are displayed first when navigating with the keyboard or assistive technologies. If this order is incorrect, users will find it difficult or impossible to use the page.

The following deficiencies have not yet been remedied due to the associated disproportionate burden:

  • Videos on the website do not have audio descriptions. The videos can be considered additional content because the information conveyed is also available in text form on the website or because they are interviews without a feature film plot.
  • PDFs of print publications can be downloaded from the website. They are not fully accessible. Here, too, content is presented that is also summarised directly on the website. We endeavour to implement accessibility requirements for newer publications. For older publications, the effort involved represents a disproportionate burden in terms of accessibility regulations.

Relevant exceptions based on legal provisions:

  • Documents (PDF) published before 23 September 2018 are available for download on the website. They are not relevant to administration and therefore do not fall within the scope of the applicable legal provisions.
  • Videos published before 23 September 2020 do not fall within the scope of application.
  • Third-party content that is beyond our control is exempt on the basis of the legal provision. No statement can be made regarding the compatibility of this third-party content with the accessibility regulations.

Contact for feedback

If you have any problems with the accessibility of this website, please contact wzg(at)univie.ac.at.

Please describe your problem as precisely as possible and indicate on which page (URL) the problem occurred.

If you do not receive a response or are not satisfied with the response, you can submit a complaint to the responsible monitoring body.

Further information on the complaints procedure

Legal basis

This accessibility statement is based on the obligation under the Web Accessibility Act.

Accessibility is checked on the basis of the criteria of EN 301 549.

Accessibility statement for subdomains of the University of Vienna

The University of Vienna endeavours to ensure that its websites comply with the Web Accessibility Act (WZG) as amended to implement Directive (EU) 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 (Official Journal L 327 of 2 December 2016, p. 1).

This accessibility statement applies to the following subdomains: studieren.univie.ac.at, websites of individual faculties (tested sample sowi.univie.ac.at), information pages of bibliothek.univie.ac.at, mtbl.univie.ac.at, event.univie.ac.at, rudolphina.univie.ac.at, self-assessment2.pzle.univie.ac.at and all pages hosted on TYPO3.

Automated monitoring of the university websites is in use.

Status of compliance with requirements

Due to the incompatibilities and exceptions outlined below, the websites are partially compliant with the guidelines for accessible web content.

As part of the university-wide relaunch in 2025/26, we plan to gradually remedy the accessibility shortcomings. Digital accessibility at the University of Vienna is organised on a decentralised basis. The responsible persons (e.g. at individual faculties) are involved in remedying the shortcomings.

The underlying criteria are based on WCAG 2.1 conformance level AA and the European standard EN 301 549 V3.1.2 (PDF).

Point 9.6 WCAG conformance requirements of EN 301 549 are not met, as WCAG 2.1 Level AA is only partially met.

Help and information for employees

As an employee of the University of Vienna, you can find information on digital accessibility on the intranet at: https://wiki.univie.ac.at/display/IT/Digitale+Barrierefreiheit

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is not accessible for the following reasons. Some problems only affect individual subdomains.

a) Incompatibility with accessibility regulations

  • Not all editorial images on all subsites have meaningful alternative text. Some linked images are missing alternative text. Font icons embedded as CSS content are not correctly hidden or labelled for mobile screen readers. (WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text content)
  • Podcasts do not have transcripts. (1.2.1 Pure audio and video content)
  • Most of the embedded videos have sufficient text descriptions, but not always (e.g. interviews with students during self-assessments). (1.2.3 Audio description or media alternative)
  • The pages do not have a completely consistent heading structure throughout. Downloadable PDFs (e.g. newsletters) are not tagged. (1.3.1 Information and relationships)
  • Links in the body text on Rudolphina are not underlined. (1.4.1 Use of colour)
  • A few texts and, in some cases, icons have insufficient contrast. (1.4.3 Contrast – minimum and 1.4.11 Non-text elements contrast)
  • On two subdomains, text enlargement is disabled for older mobile devices. (1.4.4 Change text size)
  • In image sliders on some subsites, images with text are occasionally used that do not have sufficient alternative text. (1.4.5 Images of text)
  • On some subdomains, there are deficiencies in the keyboard operability of components (e.g. image sliders, sliders in self-assessments). (2.1.1 Keyboard operability)
  • On the iPhone with VoiceOver, there is a focus trap on the menu close button. (2.1.2 No keyboard trap)
  • The image sliders used on some subdomains can be stopped with the mouse, but not with the keyboard. (2.2.2 Pause, stop, hide)
  • The skip link ‘To content’ does not work correctly on some pages (2.4.1 Bypass blocks).
  • For the mobile version, the focus order is not implemented correctly in several places on some subdomains (mobile quick links, menus). (2.4.3 Focus order).
  • On some subpages, isolated links are empty or meaningless. (2.4.4 Link purpose in context)
  • The focus styling is not optimal for some elements on some subpages; in isolated cases, the focus outline is missing (e.g. mobile search, menu close button). (2.4.7 Keyboard focus visible)
  • Some PDFs (e.g. newsletters) do not specify the language. (3.1.1 Language of the page)
  • In some cases, English-language content is not marked up with English language tags (e.g. newsletters, news teasers, individual faculty pages). (3.1.2 Language tags for parts)
  • The mobile menus are not implemented consistently across all subdomains. (3.2.3 Consistent navigation)
  • Error messages in forms are not semantically assigned. (3.3.3 Error recommendation).
  • WAI ARIA markup is not always used optimally (e.g. toggle elements, image sliders, tab tabs, sliders). The title attribute is missing from video iFrames. (WCAG success criterion 4.1.2 Name, role, value)

b) Exceptions due to disproportionate burden

  • Videos on the website do not have audio description (WCAG success criterion 1.2.5 Audio description (recorded).

The videos can be considered additional content because the information conveyed is also available in text form on the website, or because they are interviews without a feature film plot. PDFs of print publications can be downloaded from the website. They are not completely accessible. Here, too, content is presented that is also summarised and conveyed directly on the website.

  • We endeavour to implement accessibility requirements for newer publications. For older publications, the effort involved represents a disproportionate burden in terms of accessibility regulations.

c) This content does not fall within the scope of the applicable legal provisions

  • Documents (PDF) published before 23 September 2018 are available for download on the website. They are not relevant to administration and therefore do not fall within the scope of the applicable legal provisions.
  • Videos published before 23 September 2020 do not fall within the scope of application.
  • Third-party content that is beyond our control is exempt from Directive (EU) 2016/2102. No statement can be made regarding the compatibility of this third-party content with accessibility regulations.
  • Map content is displayed using the “OpenStreetMaps” plug-in.

Preparation of this accessibility statement for the subdomains of the University of Vienna

This statement was prepared on 3 July 2020.

Last update: 28 November 2023.

The assessment of the websites' compliance with the Web Accessibility Act implementing the requirements of Directive (EU) 2016/2102 was carried out in the form of an external accessibility audit according to WCAG 2.1 at conformity level AA in September 2022 and May 2023.

The following pages were reviewed:

Feedback and contact details

The offers and services on this website are continuously being improved, replaced and expanded. Usability and accessibility are very important to us.

If you notice any barriers that prevent you from using our website – problems that are not described in this statement or serious deficiencies in terms of 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 wzg@univie.ac.at. Describe the problem and include the URL(s) of the affected website or document.

Contact:

University of Vienna

Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna

wzg(at)univie.ac.at

www.univie.ac.at

Enforcement procedure

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the above contact, you can lodge a complaint with the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). The FFG accepts complaints electronically via the contact form.

Contact form for the complaints office

https://www.ffg.at/form/kontaktformular-beschwerdestelle

These complaints are examined by the FFG to determine whether they relate to violations of the provisions of the Web Accessibility Act, in particular deficiencies in compliance with accessibility requirements, by the federal government or an institution attributable to it.

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