Accessibility

The aim is WCAG 2.2 AA. This page says what has actually been built toward that, and what has not been checked yet, because a statement that only lists the good half is not much use to somebody deciding whether this site will work for them.

What is built

Every page starts with a skip link that jumps past the navigation, and it becomes visible when it receives focus rather than staying hidden. Pages use real landmarks, a header, a navigation region, a main region and a footer, so a screen reader can move between them instead of reading everything in order.

Text is set large by default. Body copy is set at a size intended to be comfortable rather than minimal, with generous line height, and the layout is built in relative units so browser zoom and a larger default font size both work rather than breaking the page.

Every control is a real button or link, reachable and operable by keyboard, with a visible focus outline. There is a light and dark theme with a three-state toggle that follows your system setting by default and live-updates if that setting changes.

Cover images carry descriptive alternative text naming the book. The cookie banner is a labelled region rather than a modal, so it never traps focus and never blocks reading, and your current privacy choice is announced as a live region when it changes rather than only appearing on screen.

There is no audio or video anywhere on this site, so nothing autoplays, and nothing moves on its own.

What has been measured, and when

An audit was run on 25 August 2026, against the built pages rather than the design. These are the results, including the things it found wrong:

Colour contrast is measured, not assumed. Every distinct text-on-background combination was checked by number in both the light and dark themes, and all of them meet WCAG AA.
Structure is checked on every build. One heading-one per page, no skipped heading levels, a skip link, and labelled landmarks. This runs automatically now, so a new page cannot quietly break it.
Book covers are now clickable. They were not. The cover art beside a review title went nowhere, on the home page and in the sidebar, which is frustrating with a mouse and invisible in a screenshot. Fixed, and a build check now fails if a cover is ever added without its link.
The mobile menu keeps the keyboard inside it. It announced itself as a dialog while letting the Tab key wander out into the page behind it, and opening it did not move focus into the menu at all. Both fixed: focus moves to the close button, Tab stays inside, Escape closes it, and focus returns to where you were.
A reduced-motion rule is now in the stylesheet. Almost nothing on this site moves, so this changes little today. It is there so that anything added later respects the preference by default.
Form fields are labelled, the required ones are marked as required rather than only starred, and the spam-trap field is hidden from assistive technology instead of just moved off-screen.

What is still not verified

Being honest about the remaining half, because an audit that only lists what it fixed is a press release:

The site has not been driven end to end by a real screen reader by a person who uses one daily. The checks above examine the page the way assistive technology reads it, which is not the same as somebody using it.
Keyboard testing covered the menu, the forms and the review pages. It has not covered every page on the site individually.
No testing has been done with voice control or screen magnification.

Known limits that are somebody else’s to fix

Cover images are served by Open Library. If one of them fails to load, the layout holds its space rather than collapsing, but the image itself is outside this site’s control.

Affiliate links lead to retailers whose accessibility is their own responsibility and varies considerably.

If something does not work

Tell me and it gets fixed, and please say what you were using, because “the menu does not open” is much easier to act on with a browser and a screen reader attached to it. Get in touch.

If something here blocks you from reading a review, say so and I will send you the text directly while it is being fixed. That is not a workaround for building it properly, but it should not cost you the thing you came for in the meantime.