Accessibility

Accessibility work here is ongoing rather than finished. We treat a barrier that stops someone from browsing, buying, or getting help as a defect in the same way we treat a broken checkout, and we fix them in that order of severity.

We would rather tell you exactly where the rough edges are than publish a badge we haven’t earned.

We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA as our reference. We are not claiming conformance to it: the storefront has not been audited against WCAG by us or by an independent third party, and the gaps listed below would prevent a conformance claim today.

These are implemented and can be verified on the live site:

• A “Skip to content” link is the first focusable element on every page, jumping past the promotional bar, header, and navigation.
• Checkout and sign-in fields have labels bound to their inputs, so clicking a label focuses its field and assistive technology announces the right name. Validation messages on those fields are announced with them.
• Product, catalogue, and search pages can be operated from the keyboard, including the “Quick view” control on each product card — which is also permanently visible on touch devices, where there is no hover state to reveal it.
• Out-of-stock options are disabled rather than merely styled, and stock changes are announced politely when you switch between options.
• Status messages that appear after an action — an assistant reply, a support message being sent, a catalogue that failed to load — are placed in polite live regions.
• Product imagery is published with alternative text.
• Colour is not the only signal for state: sold-out, error, and low-stock states carry text as well as hue.

We are aware of the following and are working through them. If one of these is blocking you, please tell us — it moves up the list.

• Dialogs do not trap focus. The quick-view panel, cart drawer, and similar overlays do not confine keyboard focus while open, do not consistently close on Escape, and do not always return focus to the control that opened them.
• Focus indicators are inconsistent. Many controls rely on the browser default, and a few custom controls suppress it. This has not yet been swept comprehensively.
• Not every form field is labelled. The checkout and authentication screens are covered; some fields on account and filter surfaces still rely on placeholder text alone.
• No screen-reader test pass. The site has not been tested end to end with VoiceOver, NVDA, or JAWS, and we have not verified reflow at 400% zoom or contrast ratios across every component.
• Some imagery lacks descriptive alternative text. Older product photography carries the product name rather than a meaningful description.

If you hit a barrier — a control that doesn’t announce correctly, a layout that doesn’t reflow, copy that is hard to read — please tell us through our contact page, or reply to any order email. Describe what you were trying to do and, if you can, the browser and assistive technology you were using.

If a barrier stops you from completing a purchase or reaching support, tell us what you needed and we will complete it for you directly.