Accessibility

What we are aiming for

Auroracast should be usable whether you are reading it on a phone in the dark, using a screen reader, or making the text bigger. We aim to meet the WCAG 2.2 AA standard. We are not claiming we meet it everywhere, because we have not had it independently audited.

What is built in

• Every page works at phone width without scrolling sideways, checked automatically across the whole site rather than spot checked.
• The site is dark by design because it is used at night, and text is kept to contrast levels that stay readable.
• Nothing important is told by colour alone. Where a colour marks a state, words say the same thing.
• Charts and readings are printed as text as well as drawn, so the figures survive without the picture.
• Images carry text descriptions, and decorative ones are hidden from screen readers rather than read out as noise.
• The app is the same website, so anything here applies on Android too.

What is not right yet

These are measured, not guessed, and they are on the list:

• Some controls are smaller than the 44 pixel minimum that makes them comfortable to tap on a phone. The worst are filter buttons and tab strips on the alerts and community pages.
• We have not tested the site end to end with a screen reader. Until we have, we will not claim it works well with one.
• The 3D globe and some charts are visual. The same information is available as text elsewhere on the page, but the visual itself has no alternative.

Telling us something is wrong

If something here is hard or impossible for you to use, please tell us and we will fix it. Say what page you were on, what you were trying to do, and what happened. If you use a screen reader or another assistive tool, telling us which one helps a lot.

You can reach us through the contact page. We aim to reply within 48 hours.

If you report an accessibility problem and are not happy with how we handle it, say so and we will look at it again.

Other policies

See our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Child Safety and Cookie Policy.