This website is built to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 at level AA. That is the standard UK public bodies are held to, and a sensible bar for a private site as well, because most of what it asks for is a site that works for everyone.
This page describes what has been built in and where verification is still outstanding. Anything not yet confirmed is marked as such rather than claimed.
The standard this site is written to
WCAG 2.1 AA is organised around four principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. In practice that translates into concrete requirements. Text must reach a set contrast ratio against its background. Every function must be reachable with a keyboard alone. Content must reflow at 400 per cent zoom without a second scrollbar across the page. Information must never be carried by colour alone.
Those requirements were treated as build rules for the theme rather than a checklist applied at the end, which is the only approach that works. Retrofitting accessibility onto a finished design usually means unpicking the design.
Moving through the site with a keyboard
Everything on this site can be operated from the keyboard. Tab moves forward through links, buttons and form fields, Shift and Tab move back, Enter follows a link, and Space toggles a control.
A skip link is the first thing in the tab order on every page. Press Tab once on arrival and a “Skip to content” link appears at the top left. Activating it jumps past the navigation to the start of the main content, which saves a keyboard or screen reader user from walking the whole menu on every page.
Navigation submenus open on keyboard focus as well as on hover, so a dropdown is never a mouse-only feature. Nothing on the site opens a modal that traps focus.
Seeing where you are: the focus indicator
Keyboard navigation is unusable without a visible focus ring, so the browser default is replaced with a stronger one rather than removed. Every focusable element shows a clear outline when it is reached by keyboard.
Because several sections sit on dark navy or slate backgrounds, the outline colour switches to white inside those bands. A dark ring on a dark background is a common failing on otherwise careful sites: technically present, practically invisible.
Colour and contrast
Body text, headings and interface text are set against their backgrounds to meet the AA contrast thresholds: 4.5 to 1 for normal text, and 3 to 1 for large text and the boundaries of interface components.
No information here is carried by colour alone. Links inside body text are distinguishable without relying on hue, table headers are marked up as headers rather than merely styled darker, and the callout panels on longer pages read the same in greyscale as in colour.
Motion, and turning it off
The site uses some scroll and entrance animation. Every part of it is wrapped in a check for the operating system setting “reduce motion”, and where that preference is set the animation does not run.
Just as importantly, no content depends on animation to exist. Text is in the page whether or not anything moves, so a visitor with motion switched off, with JavaScript unavailable, or using a screen reader gets the same words as everybody else. Nothing flashes, and nothing auto-plays.
Text, zoom and reflow
Text is set in relative units, so increasing the base font size in your browser scales the page rather than clipping it. Layouts are fluid and reflow to a single column on narrow viewports and at high zoom.
Long tables, which appear on the technical pages where specifications are compared, scroll horizontally within their own container rather than forcing the page sideways. Line lengths are held to a comfortable measure, which helps anyone tracking text with a magnifier.
Structure, headings and links
Pages use one level-one heading followed by level-two sections in document order, with level-three headings only inside them. Screen reader users navigate long pages by heading, so the order carries meaning rather than being a styling decision.
Link text describes its destination. Lists are marked up as lists, tables use proper header cells, and the page language is declared as British English so a screen reader pronounces it correctly.
Images and technical illustrations
Images carry alternative text describing what is shown and why it is there. On a site about rooflights that usually means naming the detail being illustrated, such as the covering dressed up a kerb, rather than repeating the caption. Where an image is purely decorative it is marked so that assistive technology passes over it instead of announcing it.
Formal testing status
The features above were built into the theme deliberately and can be checked by anyone: press Tab on arrival, set your system to reduce motion, or zoom to 400 per cent and watch the layout reflow.
An independent audit, testing against a defined WCAG 2.1 AA checklist, and testing with named assistive technologies are [to be confirmed]. No such assessment is claimed until it has been carried out, because a statement that overstates its position is worse than none at all: it tells a disabled visitor the barrier they just hit was not supposed to exist.
Telling us about a problem
If any part of this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, email info@sunspireskylightschelmsford.co.uk. Useful information to include: the page address, what you were trying to do, the browser and device you were using, and any assistive technology involved.
Reports are read and acted on, and a fix is applied to the theme so it takes effect across every page at once. If the information you need is stuck behind something here, say what you were looking for and it will be sent to you by email while the underlying problem is dealt with.
The date this statement was prepared, and the date of its last review, are [to be confirmed].
Tell us about your roof
We start with the building, the covering and the slope. Then we tell you what will suit it, and what it will cost, as a fixed written number.
- Surveyed before it is priced
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- Building Control notification handled
- New installations and replacements