Accessibility commitment
Accessibility
How The Next Square Deal supports keyboard access, assistive technology, reflow, reduced motion, readable content, print, and a process for reporting barriers.
Our goal
The project aims to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA and to remain useful on inexpensive phones, slow connections, keyboard-only navigation, screen readers, zoomed layouts, and printed pages. Automated tests are important but do not replace lived experience or manual review.
What the site provides
- Semantic landmarks, a skip link, logical heading order, and descriptive page titles.
- Visible keyboard focus and keyboard-operable navigation, filters, forms, search, and priority controls.
- Text reflow at narrow widths and support for 200% and 400% zoom.
- High-contrast text and status patterns that do not rely on color alone.
- Reduced-motion behavior and no autoplay, scroll-jacking, parallax, or essential animation.
- Native form labels, required-state communication, error summaries, and live status messages.
- A button-based reordering alternative; drag and drop is not required.
- Tables paired with stacked mobile alternatives where a dense comparison would otherwise require unreadable horizontal panning.
- A vertical historical timeline that works on mobile and in document order.
- Meaningful alt text where images carry information and empty alt text for decorative imagery.
- Print styles for guarantees, explainers, articles, and the Build Your Deal worksheet/results.
Progressive enhancement
Core editorial content and navigation work without JavaScript. Evidence filtering, client search, and the interactive Deal Builder require JavaScript, but each route supplies a useful browsing or printable fallback. The newsletter form uses ordinary HTML submission.
Known limits
The first release has automated browser and accessibility coverage, but it has not been represented as a completed audit by people with diverse disabilities and assistive technologies. Historical media is deliberately minimal until licensing and alt-text review are complete. A future public-review process should include paid accessibility expertise when funding and governance are established.
Report an accessibility barrier
Email accessibility@nextsquaredeal.org . Include the page, browser or assistive technology when comfortable, the task you were trying to complete, and what happened. You do not need to disclose a disability.
Future media
Future audio and video should include captions and transcripts, with audio description when needed. Interactive visualizations should expose their information in text or a data table and never require animation to understand.