Love the Mitten is committed to making this website usable by as many people as reasonably possible, including people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, magnification, or other assistive technology.
How the site is built
Accessibility is treated as part of the design work rather than something added at the end. In practice that means:
- a logical heading structure, with one main heading per page
- navigation that can be operated by keyboard, including the mobile menu
- visible focus outlines, which are deliberately not removed
- text and background colors reviewed for contrast
- link text that describes where the link goes, with links to other platforms identified as external
- form fields with visible labels
- layouts that reflow for small screens without horizontal scrolling
- alternative text on images that carry meaning
- information that does not depend on color alone
- respect for the reduced-motion setting in your operating system
The standard we work to
This site is being developed with WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the working accessibility standard. That is the target the design is measured against. It is not a claim of certified conformance, and no independent accessibility audit has been performed on this site.
Known limitations
A few things are worth naming honestly rather than glossing over:
- Parts of the site are generated by the theme and by plugins, so some markup is not fully under our control. The contact-form confirmation message and the comment area are the current examples.
- Older articles and older media are still being reviewed, and some may not yet meet the current standard.
- Documents and resources hosted elsewhere, including files shared through Google Docs, have their own accessibility characteristics.
- No accessibility overlay or widget is installed. Overlays often interfere with the assistive technology people already use, so the work is done in the underlying pages instead.
Content on other platforms
Some resources linked from this site live on Google Docs, Substack, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Etsy, or Key Realty. Those companies control the accessibility of their own platforms. If one of them creates a barrier for you, please say so and another route to the same information will be considered.
Telling us about a barrier
If something here is difficult or impossible to use, please get in touch at melissa@lovethemitten.com, by phone at (616) 856-6161, or through the contact page. It helps to include:
- the address of the page
- what you were trying to do and what happened instead
- the browser or assistive technology you were using, if you are comfortable sharing that
- how you would prefer to be contacted back
Reports are read by a person. Where it is reasonably possible, the information will be offered in another format or by another route while the underlying issue is looked at.
Ongoing work
Accessibility is reviewed as pages are added and changed. There is no automated monitoring service running on this site, so reports from real visitors genuinely help.