Getting to everything here

What we aim at

We build to WCAG 2.2 at level AA. We do not claim to have achieved it everywhere, because nobody independent has audited this site and it has not been tested by someone who uses a screen reader daily. Saying we conform would be a claim we cannot back, and this is a site that argues with unsourced claims for a living.

What is in place

• Keyboard first. Every control can be reached and used from a keyboard, focus is always visible, and a skip link is the first thing you reach on every page so you are not tabbing through the navigation before each article. The menu and the search panel both close on Escape and hand focus back where you left it.
• Real structure. One heading per page as the title, headings in order beneath it, proper lists, real form labels, and landmarks so a screen reader can jump to the content. The language is declared, so the words are pronounced as British English.
• Contrast and colour. The palette was chosen for contrast rather than corrected for it afterwards, in both the light and dark themes, and colour is never the only thing carrying meaning. Links inside prose are underlined rather than only tinted.
• Motion is optional. If your system asks for reduced motion you get the site without it: no smooth scrolling, no drifting panels, no animated reveals. Nothing here moves on its own, autoplays or flashes.
• Targets you can hit. Controls clear the 24px minimum, checked automatically at eleven screen widths from a 280px folded phone to a laptop, on every page, every time anything changes.
• Your settings win. The site follows your system’s light or dark preference rather than overriding it, text resizes and reflows without losing anything, and there are no pop-ups, no interstitials and no cookie banner to dismiss.
• It prints. Printed pages drop the navigation and the buttons, keep the reference links as readable URLs, and come out on white paper even if you are reading in dark mode.

What we check, and how

Every change is walked across eleven screen widths before it ships, checking that nothing overflows sideways and that no control is smaller than the minimum target. Alongside that we test for controls without accessible names, form fields without associated labels, images without alternative text, and headings that skip a level.

That check found a real fault while this page was being written: two dropdowns on the dosing calculator had a label you could see and no name a screen reader could read. It was fixed before this page went up. We mention it because a page like this is worth more when it shows its working.

What we do not know yet

Automated checks find the faults that can be described in code. They do not tell you whether a page makes sense read aloud, and they never will.

So, honestly: this site has not been through an independent audit, and it has not been tested end to end by someone who uses a screen reader, magnification or voice control every day. The care-symbol drawings carry text alternatives, but whether the decoder is genuinely usable without seeing the shapes is a question we would rather have answered by someone who cannot see them than assume.

If something gets in your way

Please tell us, at hello@thewashguide.app. You do not need to know why it is broken or what the standard says; what you were trying to do and what happened instead is plenty. We will reply, we will tell you honestly whether and when we can fix it, and if you need something here in a different format we will find a way to get it to you.