Accessibility statement

We want this site to be usable by everyone who needs to reach a structural engineer, including people using a screen reader, navigating by keyboard, magnifying the page, or working with motion sensitivity.

Conformance target

This site aims to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA. We are not claiming full conformance, because that claim is only meaningful after a formal audit and we have not commissioned one. What follows is what we have actually built and tested.

What we have done

• Keyboard access. Every interactive element is reachable and operable with a keyboard alone, in a logical order. A visible focus indicator is present on every control and is never suppressed.
• Skip link. The first tabbable element on every page skips past the navigation to the main content.
• Semantic structure. Pages use real landmarks (header, nav, main, footer) and a single, correctly ordered heading hierarchy, so a screen reader user can navigate by structure.
• Names and labels. Every form field has a real, visible label. Icon-only controls carry an accessible name. Links are written to make sense out of context.
• Form errors. Errors are announced, associated with their field programmatically, and summarised at the top of the form with focus moved to the summary.
• Colour and contrast. Text meets or exceeds the 4.5:1 contrast ratio at normal size and 3:1 at large size, in both the light and dark themes. Colour is never the only way information is conveyed.
• Reduced motion. All transitions and animations are reduced to near-instant when the operating system’s “reduce motion” preference is set.
• Zoom and reflow. Content reflows without horizontal scrolling at 320 px width and at 400% zoom. Text can be resized to 200% without loss of function.
• Images. Every meaningful image has descriptive alternative text. Decorative images are hidden from assistive technology rather than given filler text.
• Language. Each page declares its language, and content in a different language from the surrounding page is marked up so it is pronounced correctly.

Known limitations

• Some downloadable technical documents (PDF reports and drawings) predate this site and are not tagged for accessibility. If you need one of these in an accessible format, email us and we will provide it.
• Third-party map links open external sites whose accessibility we do not control.

Telling us about a problem

If you hit a barrier on this site, please write to us using the details on the contact page, with the page address and a short description of what happened. We aim to acknowledge within two working days and to fix confirmed issues at the next release.

If you need any information on this site in an alternative format — large print, plain text, or read aloud over the phone — ask, and we will provide it.