Accessibility

The commitment

We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA. We are not claiming full conformance, because a claim like that across 800-odd pages would be hard to substantiate honestly. What can be said is what has actually been done and what has not, which is sections 2 and 4.

What is built in

• Semantic structure. Headings in order, real tables with header cells and scopes, real lists. The recipe methods are ordered lists, so a screen reader announces "3 of 8" rather than reading a wall of paragraphs.
• Keyboard operable throughout. Every control is reachable by keyboard, the focus ring is always visible, and a skip link at the top of every page jumps to the content.
• Contrast. Body and interface text meet or exceed the AA ratio against the page ground, in both the light and the dark palette.
• Colour is never the only signal. Magenta marks an acid figure on this site, and every one of those figures is also labelled in words. Nothing is distinguishable by hue alone.
• Zoom and reflow. Text scales to 200% without loss of content. Every wide table scrolls inside its own container, so the page body never scrolls sideways.
• Numbers set as numbers. Measurements use tabular figures so columns of salt percentages line up rather than drifting, which matters for anyone reading a table under magnification.

Without JavaScript

Nearly the whole site is static HTML rendered ahead of time. With JavaScript disabled you can still read every tradition, recipe, substrate, region, organism and regulation page in full, follow every link, and see every figure with the sentence it came from.

Two things need JavaScript: the calculators, which are arithmetic run in your browser, and the contact form. Every calculator prints its formula in words on the same page, so the arithmetic can be done by hand from what is written there.

Known problems

Named rather than quietly left:

• Large parameter tables are hard work on a screen reader. A tradition page can carry ten parameters, each with a value, a quoted sentence and a source. They are correctly marked up, but "correctly marked up" and "pleasant to listen to" are different things.
• The contact form has no non-scripted fallback. If JavaScript is off there is currently no other route in, because no address is published. That is a real gap and it is the next thing on this list to fix.
• No independent audit has been done. Testing so far is our own: keyboard navigation, a screen reader, and an automated check for horizontal overflow at 390px on every template. An external audit is not yet scheduled.

Telling us about a barrier

If something here stopped you getting an answer, say so through the contact form, with what you were trying to do and what got in the way. An accessibility barrier is treated the same way as a wrong figure: as a defect with a fix.

If you need something from this site in a different format, ask and it will be sent. There is no process to go through.