Our commitment

Your Publication Name is designed to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards. We aim to make every page readable, navigable, and usable for people with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities. This is not a compliance checkbox — it is part of how we think about publishing.

What we have built

Visual accessibility

  • Colour contrast: All text meets or exceeds 4.5:1 contrast ratio against its background. Large text meets 3:1. Both light and dark modes are tested.
  • Dark mode: A full dark theme is available via the toggle in the header. It respects your system preference on first visit.
  • Font sizing: Global display settings and per-page reading settings allow you to increase text size from 14px to 24px.
  • Font choice: 27 fonts available across system serif, sans-serif, monospace, and web fonts (loaded on demand from Bunny Fonts) — including high-legibility options like Atkinson Hyperlegible.
  • Highlight colours: 6 highlight colour options so users can categorise and distinguish annotations visually; colours adapt across all themes (light, dark, sepia, cream).
  • Reading ruler: Customisable guide line to help track reading position — adjustable thickness, colour, and style; fixed position on mobile devices.
  • No motion by default: Animations respect prefers-reduced-motion. Transitions are disabled for users who prefer reduced motion.

Keyboard navigation

  • Skip-to-main link: The first element on every page is a "Skip to main content" link, visible on keyboard focus.
  • Focus indicators: All interactive elements have visible focus rings when navigated by keyboard.
  • Keyboard-accessible dropdowns: Navigation dropdowns open on focus as well as hover.
  • Calendar navigation: The events calendar supports arrow keys, Enter, Escape, PageUp/PageDown.
  • Search shortcuts: Press / to open search, arrow keys to navigate results, Enter to open, Escape to close.

Screen readers

  • Semantic HTML: We use proper heading hierarchy (h1-h3), landmark regions (nav, main, footer), and list markup.
  • ARIA labels: All icon-only buttons have aria-label attributes. Interactive toggles use aria-expanded.
  • Form labels: Every form input has an associated label element. Required fields use aria-required. Hints are connected via aria-describedby.
  • Live regions: Form status messages and search results use aria-live for screen reader announcements.
  • Image alt text: All meaningful images have descriptive alt text. Decorative images use aria-hidden="true".

Reading tools

  • Read aloud: The Web Speech API powers text-to-speech on every article and library page. You can choose your voice, adjust speed (0.75x to 2x), and pause/resume.
  • Reading settings: Full reading settings panel available on both article and library pages — font, size, line spacing, text width, word spacing, reading ruler, and auto-scroll.
  • Rich-text notes: WYSIWYG editor with formatting toolbar — no markdown syntax required for bold, italic, lists, quotes, or links.
  • Voice search: Speak to search instead of typing (Chrome, Edge, Safari).
  • Form dictation: Dictate into form textareas using your device's microphone.
  • Glossary pronunciation: Hear any glossary term spoken aloud.

Touch and mobile

  • Touch targets: All buttons and interactive elements meet 44x44px minimum touch target size.
  • Responsive design: Every page adapts to screen sizes from 320px to ultrawide.
  • No hover-only interactions: Everything accessible by hover is also accessible by tap or keyboard.

Gallery lightbox

  • Keyboard controls: Arrow keys to move between images, +/- to zoom in and out, 0 to reset zoom, Escape to close.
  • Focus trapping: Focus stays within the lightbox while it is open.

Music player

  • Keyboard accessible: Play/pause, skip, volume, and close buttons are all keyboard-focusable with visible focus rings.
  • Non-intrusive: The player bar at the bottom of the page does not obscure content — page padding adjusts when the bar is visible.

SPA navigation

  • Instant transitions: Most page navigations swap content without a full reload, reducing wait times and avoiding blank-screen flashes.
  • Graceful fallback: Pages with complex interactive features (articles, library entries) use full reloads to ensure all reader tools initialise correctly.

Performance as accessibility

  • Fast loading: Pages are pre-built static HTML served from a global CDN. No waiting for server-side rendering.
  • Offline support: Previously visited pages work without an internet connection.
  • Low bandwidth: No tracking scripts, no advertising payloads. The site works on slow connections.

Known limitations

  • The GTranslate machine translation widget has its own accessibility characteristics that we cannot fully control.
  • The Cusdis comment system renders in an iframe with its own styling.
  • Some interactive features (voice search, dictation) are not supported in Firefox.
  • The hCaptcha widget on forms has its own accessibility trade-offs.

Reporting issues

If you encounter an accessibility barrier on this site, please let us know. We take every report seriously and fix issues as quickly as we can.

When reporting, please include: the page URL, what you were trying to do, what assistive technology you are using (if any), and what happened.

Last updated: 2026