Accessibility

This page says what standard this website is held to, how we check it, what we know falls short, and how to tell us about a barrier.

Our target

We build this site to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA. That level includes the 2.1 AA criteria. A target is not a certificate: we have not had this site audited by an outside body.

How we test

• An automated scan with the axe engine runs in Chromium on every proposed change to the site pages, content or end-to-end tests, and again after each change is accepted. It covers every page in the sitemap, the not-found page, the contact form with an error and after a send, and the open menu on a phone-width screen. It runs at two screen widths, 390 and 1440 pixels, and the check fails on any violation.
• A manual pass with the keyboard alone, and a second with a screen reader, covers the home page, one service page, the contact page and the thank-you page. We record each pass before a release. So far the keyboard pass is a scripted run in a browser and the screen reader pass is a review of the accessibility tree; see the known gaps below.

Known gaps

No barrier on the pages is known at the time of writing. The checks themselves have limits, and we list them here so you know what is not covered:

• Automated scanning finds only part of the problems a person meets. Anything it cannot judge, such as whether a heading makes sense or alternative text is accurate, depends on the manual pass.
• The axe engine has no tag for the WCAG 2.2 Level A criteria that are new in 2.2, so those are checked by hand only.
• No human screen-reader session (NVDA or VoiceOver) has happened yet. The screen reader rows in our record come from a review of the accessibility tree, not from a person using a screen reader. Task MCW-A11YSTMT-102 carries that session before the site goes public.
• We test in Chromium only. Firefox, Safari, older browsers and other assistive technology are not tested.

Report a barrier

If something on this site is hard or impossible to use, tell us through the contact page. Name the page and what you were trying to do, and say which browser or assistive technology you use if you can. We will fix what we can and tell you what we did.