Accessibility

The standard we aim at

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We are not claiming to have reached it: no independent audit has been done, and this statement describes what we have built and tested ourselves.

This matters more than usual here. A site about healthcare for elderly people that assumes a steady hand and sharp eyes has misunderstood who it is for.

What we have done

• The menu works from the keyboard. It replaced dropdowns that opened only on hover — they could not be reached by keyboard at all, had no focus handling and no way to dismiss. It now opens on focus as well as hover, announces its state to screen readers, closes on Escape and returns focus where it came from.
• Every form field has a real label, tied to its input, so a screen reader announces what is being asked and tapping the label focuses the field.
• Errors are text, next to the field, saying what to do — not a red outline that a screen reader cannot see and a colourblind reader cannot distinguish.
• Nothing important is conveyed by colour alone. Status is always a word as well as a colour.
• Images that carry meaning have alt text, and decorative ones are marked so screen readers skip them rather than reading a filename.
• The site works at 200% zoom and reflows on a narrow screen without a horizontal scrollbar.
• Headings are in order, so a screen reader user can move through a page by structure.
• It works without JavaScript for reading. Donating and applying need it.

What is not right yet

Being specific is more useful than a general claim:

• No independent audit has been carried out, and no testing with actual screen-reader users. Our testing is our own, which is not the same thing.
• Some contrast is marginal. Light text on the brand cyan meets AA for large text but not for small.
• PDF receipts have not been tested for screen-reader accessibility.
• Older uploaded images may lack alt text. New uploads prompt for it; images added before that may not have it.
• Some tables in the admin area scroll horizontally on a phone rather than reflowing.

If the site does not work for you

You never have to use this website to reach us. Anything you can do here you can do by talking to a person:

• Donate — ask us for bank transfer details.
• Apply for assistance — tell us and we will take the application over the phone or in person. Nobody is refused help because a form was unusable.
• Volunteer — get in touch however suits you.
• Ask what data we hold — we will answer in whatever format you can read, including large print or a phone call.

Use the contact form, or ask somebody to send it on your behalf — we will reply to whoever we can reach.

Tell us

If something here is hard or impossible to use, tell us what you were trying to do and what happened. That is more useful than a standards reference, and we will fix what we can and say so when we cannot.

We aim to reply within 5 working days. Accessibility problems are treated as faults, not as feature requests.