Accessibility

• 01

  Text contrast was measured, not estimated

  Body text is set in one of four inks on the page ground, measuring 14.56:1, 11.60:1, 9.28:1 and 6.27:1. WCAG 2.1 AA names 4.5:1 for normal-size body text. The ratios are recorded in a comment at the top of the stylesheet so they can be checked against the tokens.

• 02

  Nothing is carried by colour alone

  Every cell of the matrix carries the word 'distinct' or 'merged' as well as its appearance. Merged cells are additionally marked by a rule, which is geometry rather than tone. This is the rule the whole product is about, so the site follows it.

• 03

  Status is never shown in red and green

  The interface has no hue at all. On a tool about the confusion of reds and greens, using red and green for status would be absurd.

• 04

  The matrix has a plain-text equivalent

  One control swaps the grid for a text report naming every pair, every situation, whether it merges, and the measured values. It is selectable, copyable and readable by a screen reader in reading order.

• 05

  Every image has alt text and none of them carry an argument

  The photographs illustrate; they never carry information that is not also in the text beside them. If every image failed to load, no argument on the site would be incomplete.

• 06

  The page works from the keyboard

  Every control is reachable and operable by keyboard, focus order follows reading order, the focus indicator is a two-pixel outline with an offset, and there is a skip link to the main content.

• 07

  Motion is minimal and can be turned off

  The only animation is the six-cell loading state. Under prefers-reduced-motion it is switched off and the six cells are drawn at once. There is nothing that autoplays, moves on scroll or flashes.

• 08

  Structure is real, not visual

  One h1 per page, headings in order, lists marked up as lists, the matrix as a real table with row and column headers and a caption, and landmarks for header, main and footer.

• 09

  Text can be resized and the page reflows

  The layout uses relative units and holds together at 200% zoom and at a 320 pixel viewport width, with one exception noted below.

• 10

  There is a print stylesheet

  It also prints a warning on the printout itself, saying that the printed version is subject to the same conversion the tool is analysing.

These are known. None of them is a surprise to us, and listing them is more use to you than leaving them out.

• 01

  The matrix scrolls sideways on a narrow screen

  On a phone the matrix does not reflow into a single column. That is deliberate — six situations stacked vertically turns a comparison into a memory test, which destroys the thing the matrix is for — but it does mean horizontal scrolling, which some people find difficult. The plain-text version is the way round it, and it is one control away on the same panel. We would rather solve this properly than pretend it is solved.

• 02

  Two of the eight interface tones are not usable for small text

  The secondary ink measures 4.36:1 on the page ground, which is under the 4.5:1 that WCAG 2.1 AA names for normal-size text. It is therefore used only on large display type — 24px and above, or 18.66px bold and above, sizes for which AA names 3:1 — and never for text that carries something nothing else carries. The two lightest tones are not used for text at all, with one exception: the label of a control that is switched off, which WCAG exempts and where looking inactive is the point. This is a constraint we work within rather than a problem we have fixed, because the eight tones are fixed.

• 03

  It has not been tested with every screen reader

  Testing has been done with VoiceOver on macOS and Safari, and with NVDA on Windows and Firefox. It has not been tested with JAWS, TalkBack or VoiceOver on iOS. Behaviour there is unknown rather than known to be good.

• 04

  It has not been tested with voice control or a switch device

  No testing has been done with Dragon, Voice Control or switch access. We do not know how it behaves.

• 05

  No independent audit has been carried out

  Everything above was checked by the people who built the site. That is not the same as an audit by someone else, and it is worth less.

• 06

  The swatches themselves cannot be made accessible

  The colours a reader types in are their colours. We show them as they are, because altering them would make the measurement meaningless. Where those colours are hard to see, that is the finding, not a fault in the page.

We used WCAG 2.1 at level AA as the checklist to work through, because it is the most widely used one and because it is specific enough to test against. Working through a checklist is not the same as satisfying it, and this page does not claim the latter.

Contrast ratios were computed from the relative luminance formula in WCAG 2.1 rather than read off a tool, and the values are written into the stylesheet so that anyone changing a token has to confront them.

If something on this site does not work for you, we want to know, and a short description of what happened is enough — you do not have to diagnose it.

Write to support@picassod.shop or call +44 7357749738. We reply to written messages within one working day. If you need something on this site in another format in order to use it, ask and we will find a way.

Everything on this page is about the accessibility of this website. It is not a statement about what the service does, and it does not change the fact that the service makes no judgement about whether anything else meets a standard. That is set out on the how this works page.