Accessibility Statement
I do my best to make this website as accessible as I can. This is an area of constant improvement, so if you think I've missed something or if something isn't working like I think it is, please let me know.
Contents
Things I have
Code and compatibility
This website:
- Is mobile-optimized and works on all screen resolutions.
- Uses HTML5 and the aria-label tag to structure content.
- Uses system fonts.
- Doesn't require Javascript to function correctly.
Visual (Design and images)
- There are multiple stylesheets, each of which has built-in dark and light mode that modulates based on browser/OS settings. The styleswitcher is the one part of the website that unavoidably requires Javascript, but if Javascript isn't enabled, the page design will default to a plain stylesheet with no background images. The light/dark mode toggle uses just CSS.
- In blog posts, I include image information in the surrounding text and caption instead of as alt text. This allows all users to access the information, regardless of whether they're using a screen reader. Because of this, I won't assign alt text to the image if I think the textual context makes it redundant, or if the image is strictly cosmetic.
- Planned feature: Images in galleries will have short descriptions in the alt text with longer descriptions on a separate dedicated image page.
- I resize images to be as small as possible while still serving their purpose. I also compress them with TinyPNG.
- There are no rapidly flashing images (or really much in the way of animated GIFs at all).
Text
- Blog posts (and probably other pages) are compatible with browser Reader Mode functions.
- The font size is relatively large. I use Atkinson Hyperlegible for the body text. This adds a little bit of download time, but I think it's worth it for the benefits it provides: letterforms are made as distinct from each other as possible, which helps with character recognition for people with low vision. If the font can't be loaded, system sans-serif is used as a fallback. Headings use Georgia for operating systems that have it and system default serif otherwise.
- The website displays correctly with browser zoom.
- Font and link colors pass contrast checks. Links found in the middle of paragraphs are underlined. Links in lists that are composed exclusively of links aren't underlined to avoid repetitiveness/eye strain. I never use color by itself to convey information.
- I try to break paragraphs up frequently to avoid giant walls of text.
Things to be addressed
- I've written PHP/SQL code that automatically generates separate pages with image descriptions for image galleries, so all that's left to do is write the descriptions!