Accessibility

The standard I build to

The List is built to WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the W3C. It is the same standard I build every website to at my studio, Kootenay Made Digital. WCAG 2.2 includes everything in 2.1 and adds newer rules on top, such as bigger tap targets and focus that is never hidden.

What that means here

Structure

Pages use real headings in order, landmarks, lists that are lists and buttons that are buttons. A screen reader gets a page that makes sense, not a pile of styled boxes.

Keyboard

Everything you can click, you can reach and use with a keyboard alone. The spot you are on always shows a visible outline, and the bar at the top of the page never hides it.

Contrast and text size

Text meets the AA contrast ratios. Pages hold together when you make the text bigger or zoom in, down to a 320 pixel wide screen.

Tap targets

Buttons and links are big enough to hit with a thumb. Small ones are spaced so a near miss does not land on the wrong thing.

Motion

Turn on reduce motion in your device's settings and the List holds still. The moving wall of names at the top of the home page also has a Pause the tour button. The business in the window on the home page gets its name lettered in with a short animation, and that is skipped too when you ask for less motion.

Images

Photos carry a description written from what each one shows. Owners' photos get one too, written when their listing goes up. Drawings that only decorate a page are marked so a screen reader can skip them.

Forms

Every field on the claim and add forms has a label. If something is missing when you press send, the form says which field and why.

How I check it

Before a change goes live, the pages it touches go through automated checks: the axe rules for WCAG 2.2 AA, a contrast sweep of every line of text, a count of undersized tap targets, and a check that the keyboard moves through each page in order. The same pages are rendered with the text at 130% on a 320 pixel screen, with forced dark mode, and with reduced motion, and I look at each one. Automated tools catch only part of the problem, so their results are the floor, never the goal.

What I know falls short

• Text over photos. The business in the window on the home page has its name lettered over its own photo. Tools cannot judge text on a photo, so I check each one by eye. If one is hard for you to read, that is a real miss and I want to hear about it.
• Screen readers. I do not yet run a screen reader through every change. The structure is built for them, but if something reads out wrong, tell me what you were using and I will fix it.
• Other websites.Listings and the funding page link to businesses' own websites and to funders' pages. I cannot fix those sites, but if one blocks you, tell me and I will help you find another way to reach them.

Found a barrier? Tell me

Email hello@kootenaylist.ca and tell me what happened, which page it was on, and what you were using, such as a phone, a screen reader or a keyboard. If one of the forms on this site is the problem, the email works without it. I read every message myself. I fix the problem first, check the fix the same way it went wrong for you, and then write back to tell you what changed.

You can also read how the List works, the privacy page and the terms.