Accessibility Statement

Our website is ADA compliant and Section 508 compliant, following the WCAG 2.2 guidelines for website accessibility. We also use the AccessiBe widget to provide additional tools to make our website usable for everyone!

Measures to support accessibility

We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the broadest possible audience, regardless of ability.

White Whale Web, LLC takes the following measures to ensure accessibility of our website:

  • Include accessibility as part of our mission statement.
  • Include accessibility throughout our internal policies.
  • Appoint an accessibility officer and/or ombudsperson.
  • Provide continual accessibility training for our staff.
  • Assign clear accessibility goals and responsibilities.
  • Employ formal accessibility quality assurance methods.
  • Include people with disabilities in our design personas.

 

Compliance status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. Our website is fully conformant with WCAG 2.2 level AA but this is one limitation that is addressed below.

If you wish to contact the website’s owner please use the following email [email protected]

Additional accessibility considerations

Although our goal is WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance, we also applied some Level AAA Success Criteria: Images of text are only used for decorative purposes. Keyboard (No Exception): Making all functionality of the content accessible from a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes. No Timing: Ensuring that no part of the content requires a timed response from users. Re-authentication after a session expires does not cause loss of data. Three Flashes: Ensuring that no content flashes more than three times in any one second period. Section Headings: Organizing content using clear and descriptive section headings. Change on Request: Ensuring that changes of context are initiated only by user request. Error Prevention (All): Providing mechanisms to help users avoid and correct mistakes for all input situations.

This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We also utilize an accessibility interface called AccessiBe that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs. 

Screen-reader and keyboard navigation

Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers can read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements:

1. Screen-reader optimization: we run a process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others.

These adjustments are compatible with popular screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack.

2. Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.

Additionally, keyboard users will find content-skip menus available at any time by clicking Alt+2, or as the first element of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, not allowing the focus to drift outside.

Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Disability profiles supported on our website

- Epilepsy Safe Profile: this profile enables people with epilepsy to safely use the website by eliminating the risk of seizures resulting from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.

- Vision Impaired Profile: this profile adjusts the website so that it is accessible to the majority of visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.

- Cognitive Disability Profile: this profile provides various assistive features to help users with cognitive disabilities such as Autism, Dyslexia, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements more easily.

- ADHD Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

- Friendly Profile: this profile significantly reduces distractions and noise to help people with ADHD, and Neurodevelopmental disorders browse, read, and focus on the essential elements more easily.

- Blind Users Profile (Screen-readers): this profile adjusts the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is installed on the blind user’s computer, and this site is compatible with it.

- Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments

1. Font adjustments – users can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.

2. Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds with over seven different coloring options.

3. Animations – epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.

4. Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize essential elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.

5. Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.

6. Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.

7. Additional functions – we allow users to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.

Assistive technology and browser compatibility

We aim to support as many browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS, and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and MAC users.

Limitations and alternatives

Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility on our website, there may be some limitations. Below is a description of known limitations, and potential solutions. Please contact us if you observe an issue not listed below.

Known limitations for our website:

  • FAQs have hidden links: Hidden element has focusable content because When FAQ answers are toggled closed, the links within the answers are still focusable. If you have an issue accessing the links, toggle the FAQ answers open to view the links within the answers.

Assessment approach

We assessed the accessibility of our website by the following approaches:

  • Self-evaluation
  • Chrome Lighthouse
  • SiteImprove
  • Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE)
  • AccessiBe AccessScan

Feedback

Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible.

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of the White Whale Web Website. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers on our website:

We try to respond to feedback within 3 business days.