Accessibility Statement

Accessibility

This site is built so that anyone who wants to read Ingersoll's words can read them — regardless of how they use the web.

Last updated: 2026

Our commitment

We target conformance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 Level AA. That is the same minimum that most public-sector sites in the US, UK, and EU are legally required to meet.

What we've done

Colour & contrast

  • Every body-text pair has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. Most are above 6:1; the main text/background pair sits at 16:1.
  • The palette was audited mathematically in both light and dark modes — full numbers in the commit history.
  • Decorative ornaments never carry meaning that isn't also available in text.

Keyboard & focus

  • Every interactive element is reachable with the Tab key.
  • Visible focus rings on every focusable element.
  • A Skip to main content link is the first focusable item on every page.
  • Press / anywhere to jump to the search box.
  • Press Esc to close the slide-in navigation panel.

Screen readers & semantics

  • Proper HTML landmarks: <header>, <nav>, <main>, <footer>.
  • Single <h1> per page; heading order is never skipped.
  • Every form input has a real <label>.
  • Dynamic content (search results, filter counts, form status) is announced via aria-live.
  • Decorative icons carry aria-hidden="true"; meaningful icons have aria-label.
  • The active page in the navigation is marked with aria-current="page".

Motion & animation

  • All animations respect prefers-reduced-motion — if your OS is set to reduce motion, this site delivers instant transitions.
  • Nothing auto-plays. No flashing content.

Typography & readability

  • Body text is served in Crimson Pro at a fluid size that scales from 16 px on small screens to 18 px on large ones.
  • Line length is capped around 68 characters on article pages — the range that published research identifies as easiest to read.
  • Text reflows at 400% zoom without loss of content or horizontal scrolling.
  • Line spacing and paragraph spacing can be increased with a user stylesheet or browser setting without breaking layout.

Touch targets

  • Every interactive element is at least 44×44 CSS pixels — the WCAG 2.2 AAA target-size recommendation.

Forms

  • Real labels, required fields clearly marked, autocomplete hints on every common field.
  • Form validation messages use aria-live so screen readers announce them.
  • The contact form uses hCaptcha, chosen because it is more accessible than reCAPTCHA's image grids.

Dark mode

  • Honors your system preference automatically (prefers-color-scheme).
  • A manual toggle is available in the site header.
  • No flash of the wrong theme on page load — the preference is applied before first paint.

Internationalisation

  • The page <html lang> attribute is always set.
  • Direction (dir) is declared where needed.

Known limitations

  • Imagery & alt text: the site currently uses decorative initials-based placeholders rather than real portraits. As we add public-domain photographs, every one will ship with descriptive alt text.
  • Long archival texts: Ingersoll's 19th-century prose uses vocabulary and sentence structures that a modern reader may find dense. We preserve the original text verbatim (see our editorial standards) and do not simplify it.
  • hCaptcha: the audio challenge fallback exists but has historically been harder than the visual one. If you need help completing the contact form, please request an accessibility cookie from hCaptcha and reload the page.

Testing

We develop with axe DevTools, the Lighthouse accessibility audit, and NVDA + VoiceOver screen readers. The site scores 100 on Lighthouse accessibility at the time of this writing.

Automated tools catch about a third of accessibility issues. The other two-thirds come from real users telling us what's broken. Please — if anything on this site is harder for you to use than it should be, tell us.

Reporting an accessibility issue

Write to us via the contact form and choose “Accessibility issue” as the topic. Include:

  • The URL where you hit the problem
  • What you were trying to do
  • What happened, and what you expected instead
  • Your browser + assistive technology (if you'd like to share)

We aim to respond within five business days and to fix confirmed issues in the next deployment.

Legal basis

This is a non-commercial, volunteer-run public-domain archive. We are not legally required to conform to ADA, Section 508, EN 301 549, or the European Accessibility Act — but we aim to. Accessibility is a feature of the site, not an afterthought.

Link copied