Using this site

The standard we build to

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, Level AA. That is the level referenced by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and by federal accessibility requirements, and it is the level this site was designed to from the first page rather than tested against at the end.

We say built to meet rather than certified: nobody has audited these pages from outside, and a conformance claim is worth what the evidence behind it is worth. The evidence is below.

What was measured

The colour system was built from a contrast table rather than by eye, and the awkward cases were settled by measurement. Where a colour failed at a size, it was not used at that size — the deep red that carries links and labels measures under 2:1 on the dark bands, so on those bands it is silently replaced with a grey that passes, and no author can choose otherwise.

Text over photographs is the case most sites get wrong, so each of those was measured against the actual crop and the actual words, not against an average of the image.

Body text

5.98:1 and 5.29:1 against the two page grounds — AA needs 4.5

Text on dark bands

10.76:1

Labels on dark

6.32:1

Text over photographs

Each scrim measured against its own crop

Form field borders

3:1 against their background — WCAG 2.2's 1.4.11

Structure and keyboard use

Every page can be used without a mouse. Focus is always visible, the focus ring was measured rather than eyeballed, and a skip link is the first thing the keyboard reaches on every page so the navigation can be jumped past.

Headings describe the page rather than style it, each section is named for assistive technology, and the contact form's errors are announced as well as shown — once above the form for somebody who submitted from the keyboard and needs to know why nothing happened, and once under the field itself.

The form works with JavaScript turned off. It posts, it validates, and it comes back with the confirmation or the errors in place.

Images

Every photograph on this site has alt text written for it, describing the frame for somebody who cannot see it. None of it is filenames, and none of it is generated. Where an image is decorative — a portrait beside a name that is already the link's own text — its alt text is deliberately empty, so a screen reader says the name once rather than twice.

Motion and text size

One thing on this site moves on its own: the photograph behind the homepage heading, which changes every six seconds. Nothing anywhere flashes or blinks.

There is a pause button on that photograph. It is visible without hovering, it can be reached and pressed from the keyboard, and once you have stopped the rotation nothing starts it again except you — not switching tabs and back, not resizing the window.

If your system is set to reduce motion, the rotation does not start at all and the button is not shown, because there is nothing to pause. The first photograph simply stays, rather than being swapped for a gentler animation, since the movement is the thing being opted out of.

Text can be enlarged with your browser's own zoom, and the layout reflows rather than breaking or requiring you to scroll sideways to read a line.

What is known not to meet this yet

One thing, and it is ours to fix rather than a reason for the claim above to be read more loosely.

The mobile navigation has not been tested with a screen reader on a phone, which is a different exercise from testing it on a desktop — the gestures differ, and so does what gets announced. It works from a keyboard on a desktop and it has been built to the same rules as the rest of the site, but until somebody has driven it with VoiceOver and with TalkBack we are not going to claim more than that.

No page has been through a full audit by a third party, and no page has been tested with every combination of screen reader and browser. When either happens, this section is where the results go.

If something here blocks you

Tell us. A barrier on this site is a fault on our side, and knowing about it is the only way it gets fixed. Say which page, what you were trying to do, and what happened — and if it is easier to tell us by phone or to have somebody else write on your behalf, that is fine.

We will reply, and we will say what we are going to do about it and roughly when.