Accessibility statement

1 The target

Threadline News targets conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. That is a target, not a claim: we state conformance only for what we have tested, and clause 3 says plainly where testing stands.

2 What is built in

The design system enforces a set of accessibility rules structurally, so a page cannot opt out of them:

1. 1Metadata text never drops below 13 pixels, and body text is 19 pixels. Contrast is measured against the actual colour tokens at the actual weights.
2. 2Every interactive target is at least 44 by 44 pixels, including dismiss controls and filter buttons.
3. 3Every focusable element keeps a visible 2 pixel focus outline. It is never removed.
4. 4Status is never conveyed by colour alone. A storyline's state is a shape and a word; a case's state is a sentence; form errors are named in text.
5. 5Motion is limited to 120 millisecond colour and border transitions, and the reduced-motion preference removes even that. Nothing autoplays.
6. 6Heading levels do not skip, pages work at 320 pixels wide without horizontal scrolling, and dark mode meets the same contrast measurements as light.
7. 7Machine-pulled records are distinguished from our coverage by type, surface and label at once, so the distinction survives a screen reader as text, not styling.

3 Testing status and known gaps

Automated and manual checks are in progress across the site's templates. Automated checks run against the main templates; manual keyboard and screen reader passes are underway and are not yet complete for every template and state. Until they are, we do not claim AA conformance.

Known gaps at the revision date of this page: screen reader passes for the compressed storyline timeline and for interactive chart readouts are not finished, and PDF documents we link on official sites are outside our control.

4 Reporting a problem

If any part of this site does not work with your equipment or software, write to us with Accessibility in the subject line, and say what you were trying to do, the page it happened on, and what browser or assistive technology you were using. Problems that block reading the news are treated as production faults, not suggestions.