Accessibility

Accessibility Statement

Built accessibility-first, not bolted on. What that means, what's in place, and what's still in flight.

Last reviewed: 17 May 2026

Why this page exists One in six Australians lives with a disability. Many more benefit from accessibility features at some point: bright sunlight on a phone screen, a broken arm, a noisy site visit, getting older. The Hunter region we serve has a disproportionately older population, and a lot of those people are still running their own trade businesses. If the site doesn't work for them, the site doesn't work.

1. The Standard We Target

Steel Cap Digital aims to conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA. That's the baseline most Australian government and accessibility advocacy bodies recommend for public-facing websites.

Aim and reality aren't always the same thing. Where we've fallen short of AA, we say so below.

2. The Accessibility Panel

The orange accessibility button sits bottom-right on every page. Tap it and you get four controls that save across pages and visits:

  • Text size. Three levels. Scales the main content, nav and footer for easier reading. The accessibility panel itself stays at a fixed size so the controls remain reachable at any zoom level.
  • Text size. Three levels. Makes the main content, top menu and footer bigger so they’re easier to read. The accessibility panel itself stays at a fixed large size so you can always reach the controls.
  • High contrast. Black on white, no colour. Strips brand decoration and reduces cognitive load if you need a cleaner read.
  • High contrast. Black on white, no colours. Removes the brand styling and makes everything easier on the eyes if you want a simpler read.
  • Motion. Auto follows your device preference. Reduce stops animations and the parallax hero. Allow forces them on.
  • Plain English (separate toggle): the "Plain English" button next to the accessibility panel rewrites paragraphs with technical or marketing terms into everyday language. Whole sentences swap, not just words. Useful if you'd rather read about "showing up on Google" than "SEO."

Settings save in your browser. No account, no sign-in. The panel itself is keyboard and screen reader accessible.

3. What's In Place Today

The current site (deployed May 2026) ships with the following accessibility features:

  • Keyboard-friendly: every interactive element is reachable and operable by keyboard alone. A "Skip to content" link is the first focusable element on every page.
  • Works with just a keyboard: every button, link and form on the site can be used without a mouse. A “Skip to content” link appears first when you Tab onto any page.
  • Visible focus: a 3px orange focus ring shows on any element you tab to. Built into the design, not bolted on.
  • Screen reader hooks: nav, dropdown submenus, mobile menu, and FAQ accordions all expose ARIA state. Form errors announce themselves via aria-live regions.
  • Works with screen readers: the menu, dropdowns, mobile menu, and FAQ sections all properly tell screen reader software what’s open or closed. Form errors get spoken aloud as they happen.
  • Region-correct language: every page declares lang="en-AU" so Aussie place names and currency are pronounced correctly.
  • Set to Australian English: every page tells screen readers it’s Australian English, so Aussie place names and dollar amounts are pronounced correctly.
  • Reduced motion respected: if your system asks for reduced motion, animations sit still. The panel above also lets you override this either way.
  • Semantic structure: headings step in order, landmarks (nav, main, footer) are present, decorative imagery has empty alt attributes.
  • Properly structured: headings are in the right order, the main parts of each page (menu, main content, footer) are marked correctly, and decorative images don’t announce themselves to screen readers.
  • Touch targets: interactive elements meet 44x44px on mobile.
  • Escape closes overlays: the mobile menu, nav dropdowns, and the accessibility panel close on Escape and return focus to their trigger.
  • No flashing content: nothing on the site flashes more than three times per second.
  • Per-field form validation: the contact form shows specific, inline errors for each field that needs attention, not one generic message.
  • Tested against Lighthouse: every audited page meets or exceeds 0.95 on Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO. We're chasing 1.00 on accessibility.
  • Tested with Google’s Lighthouse tool: every checked page scores 95% or higher on speed, accessibility, best practices, and Google ranking. We’re chasing a perfect 100% on accessibility.

4. What We're Still Working On

Honest list. None of these are emergencies, but each one is on the work board.

  • Screen reader walkthrough: a full manual pass with NVDA and VoiceOver across every page hasn't been completed yet. Automated checks pass, but automated checks miss things a real screen reader user would catch.
  • Contrast spot-checks: the primary palette is verified. A handful of decorative or hover-state colour pairs are still being audited. Where we know there's a known issue, it's listed and tracked.
  • Cognitive accessibility: Plain English mode helps. Reading-level testing across body copy is still ahead of us.
  • Real-device testing: we test on emulators and one Android phone. A wider device sweep (older Androids, older iPhones, common assistive setups) is queued.

Each of these is tracked. Updates ship to this page when fixes ship to the site.

5. Compatibility

The site is built and tested against current versions of:

  • Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge (latest two major versions of each)
  • iOS Safari and Android Chrome on mobile
  • NVDA (Windows) and VoiceOver (macOS / iOS) at the basic-navigation level

If you use an older browser or less common assistive technology and run into problems, please tell us. Older-browser support is a known gap, but specific issues we hear about may be fixable.

6. Known Technical Limitations

  • The parallax hero on the homepage uses scroll-linked motion. The accessibility panel above lets you turn it off. Without that override, it follows your device's reduced-motion preference if set.
  • Some embedded content (Stripe checkout, Formspree confirmation) is hosted by external services we don't control. Their accessibility is their own. We pick providers who take it seriously.

7. How to Report a Problem

If anything on this site is hard to use, broken, or excluding you, please reach out. We take accessibility issues seriously and respond quickly.

When you write or call, the most useful information is: which page, what you were trying to do, what got in the way, and what device / browser / assistive tech you were using. We aim to acknowledge within one business day and to ship a fix or a workaround within five.

8. Formal Complaints

If we don't respond to a reported accessibility issue in a reasonable time, or you're not satisfied with how we've handled it, you can escalate to the Australian Human Rights Commission, which administers the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

9. How This Page Is Maintained

This statement is reviewed at every release that touches accessibility, and at least every six months otherwise. The "Last reviewed" date at the top reflects the most recent review. The site is built and maintained by Shannon White (Steel Cap Digital) using static HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no framework, deployed via Cloudflare Pages. Accessibility regressions are caught by per-release manual checks, by Lighthouse CI on every push, and by ongoing user feedback.

10. Contact

For accessibility-specific questions or feedback: