ellie@princess: ~

ellie@princess ~ $ cat ~/accessibility.md

accessibility // small site, concrete standard

This is a personal website, not an airport procurement portal, but that is not an excuse for making it hostile to use. The working target is WCAG 2.2 Level AA. This page records what the site currently does, where it may still fall short, and what future changes are expected not to break.

All navigation, filters, disclosure controls, copy buttons, and links are intended to work with a keyboard. A skip link moves directly to the main content, focus indicators are deliberately visible, and the mobile menu closes with Escape as well as its toggle button.

Nothing should require precise pointer movement or a hover state. Heading permalink controls remain available on touch devices and through keyboard focus even though they stay visually quiet for mouse users until needed.

The site respects the prefers-reduced-motion setting. Smooth scrolling, animations, and transitions are reduced to effectively no motion when that preference is active. Content does not autoplay, flash, or move merely because a product manager once saw an engagement chart.

The pastel terminal palette is designed for readable contrast against the dark background. Important state is communicated with text, borders, symbols, or labels rather than colour alone. Keyboard focus uses a high-contrast outline that does not depend on the component’s normal colour.

Syntax highlighting uses colour to make code easier to scan, but the code remains understandable without it. The print stylesheet switches to a lighter paper-friendly palette while retaining syntax distinctions.

The site has not yet had an independent accessibility audit or exhaustive testing across every screen reader, browser, zoom level, and operating-system combination. I do not claim formal WCAG conformance yet.

Long code samples and wide tables may require horizontal scrolling on narrow screens. Alternative text and heading structure are reviewed during publishing, but that process is still manual and therefore vulnerable to the traditional automation gap known as “a human forgot.”

If a design flourish, third-party browser behaviour, or future change creates a barrier, that is a bug—not an aesthetic difference visitors are expected to negotiate around.

Please contact me through Matrix or Mastodon. If possible, include the page URL, what you were trying to do, your browser or assistive technology, and what happened instead. You do not need to diagnose the implementation before reporting it; providing a reproduction is already unpaid QA labour.

Last updated: 15 July 2026.