Vexnaros tests this catalogue against WCAG 2.1 AA and says exactly where it still falls short.

Conformance target

Vexnaros builds and tests this site against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA. That target covers the front page's modular grid, the four category pages, every single-item page, the part-and-model lookup tool, the contact and data-request forms, and the chat widget. It does not mean the site is certified by an outside body — nobody has certified it — it means AA is the bar the team checks new and changed pages against before they go live.

Concretely, that means: text keeps a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background outside of large display type, every image carries real alternative text describing what is actually in the photograph, every form field has its own visible label rather than a placeholder standing in for one, and no control is smaller than 44 by 44 pixels on a touch screen.

Keyboard use and page structure

Every interactive element on this site — the section tabs under the masthead, the mobile menu toggle, filter chips on the catalogue page, the accordions on the terms and guarantee pages, the part-and-model lookup, and the chat widget — can be reached and operated using only a keyboard, in a sensible tab order, with a visible focus outline in the site's own terracotta accent rather than a default browser ring that gets lost against a dark section.

Each page carries exactly one main heading (h1) that states what the page actually does, a skip link that jumps straight past the masthead to the main content for anyone tabbing through, and heading levels that step down in order rather than skipping from an h2 straight to an h4 for visual effect. Landmarks — header, nav, main, footer — are used as HTML elements, not just as visual regions, so a screen reader user gets the same map of the page a sighted user gets from the layout.

Images, forms and the chat widget

Every photograph across the catalogue — the raised garden bed kit outdoors, the corner bracket detail crop, the loppers on the workbench — carries alternative text describing the actual subject of that specific photograph, not a generic caption reused across items. A decorative icon from the site's sprite is marked so a screen reader skips over it rather than announcing a symbol with no meaning on its own.

The inquiry form, the chat start form and the data request form each label every field in text, associate an error message with its field using aria-describedby so a screen reader announces the problem at the point it matters, and never rely on color alone to mark a required field or an invalid one. The chat transcript is a live region announced politely, so new messages are read out without interrupting whatever the visitor was doing.

Known limits, stated plainly

Two things are not yet where the team wants them. First, the live-filter search box on the full catalogue page updates the visible list instantly on a modern browser, but on a very old browser without support for the JavaScript features it uses, the filter can lag by a second or two before the result count updates — the results themselves are always correct, the announcement is just briefly behind. Second, the overlapping photo collage on the front page is decorative layering of real product photographs; it is marked so a screen reader does not read out three overlapping captions as one confusing block, but the visual effect itself is not something a screen reader can convey, so the front page's plain-text sections carry the same information in full sentences instead.

Neither limit blocks a visitor from finding an item, reading its specification, or sending an inquiry. If either one does block you in practice, that counts as a barrier under the next section, not an acceptable limit — tell the shop about it.

How this is tested

Reporting a barrier

If a page, a form or the chat widget stops you doing something a sighted, mouse-using visitor could do, tell Vexnaros which page it was on and what happened. Email office@vexnaros.com or call +1 (448) 555-8118 — the owner or one of the other three staff answers most afternoons and will pass a technical fix on to whoever maintains the site. The shop aims to reply within two working days and to fix a confirmed barrier within a reasonable stretch given it is a four-person operation, not a large company with a dedicated engineering team.