Last reviewed .
What we are targeting
We build this site to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.1, at Level AA. For our federal audiences we also build toward Section 508 expectations, because the people this site is written for work under them every day.
Targeting a standard and being certified against one are different things, and we are careful about the difference. What follows is what we have implemented, followed by what we have not yet had verified.
What is implemented
- Keyboard navigation throughout. Every interactive control on every page can be reached and operated with a keyboard alone. Nothing on this site requires a mouse, and nothing is revealed only on hover.
- Visible focus indicators. When a control holds keyboard focus, you can see it. The focus ring is drawn on the dark surfaces and on the light cards, and it is built to survive Windows High Contrast, where the styling most sites rely on is stripped away.
- Standard ARIA patterns on the interactive parts. The switchers on this site use the ARIA tab pattern: real tab and tabpanel roles, selected state exposed, one tab stop into each group, and arrow, Home, and End keys to move between options. Disclosure controls, including the mobile navigation toggle, report whether they are expanded or collapsed.
- Decorative visualizations hidden from assistive technology. The animated canvas graphics carry no information that is not already in the text beside them. They are hidden from screen readers rather than announced as unlabeled images.
- Reduced motion respected. If your system is set to reduce motion, every looping animation on this site stops. Each visualization paints a single static frame, and content appears without transitions instead of sliding in.
- Semantic headings. Each page has one first-level heading and a heading order that does not skip levels, so navigating by heading gets you a usable outline of the page rather than a jumble.
- Text alternatives. Images that carry meaning have descriptive alternative text. Decorative images carry empty alternative text so they are skipped rather than read aloud.
Known limitations
We would rather tell you what we have not done than let you assume it.
- Our focus indicators are built to survive Windows High Contrast mode, but we have not yet confirmed that on a Windows machine. It is on our list.
- This site has not been through a full third-party accessibility audit. Our testing has been our own: keyboard passes, screen reader checks, and verification of reduced-motion and forced-colors behavior. That is useful work, but it is not an independent audit, and we are not going to describe it as one.
- Because that audit has not happened, we do not claim full conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We target it, we build for it, and we have not had it confirmed by anyone outside ANDECO.
- Complex interactive components are where sites like this usually fall short. The switchers and the contact form are the most likely places for a problem we have not found ourselves.
Anything reported to us, and anything we find on our own, gets written down and fixed. Accessibility problems are treated as defects, not as improvements to schedule later.
Report an accessibility problem
If any part of this site is hard or impossible for you to use, tell us. Email connect@andeco.org.
It helps us if you include:
- The address of the page where you hit the problem.
- What you were trying to do at the time.
- The assistive technology you were using, including the screen reader, browser, and operating system if you know them.
Describing it in your own words is enough. You do not need to name a standard, cite a success criterion, or work out the cause. That part is our job.
What we will do about it
We will acknowledge your message. We will tell you what we found, what we intend to do, and when, if we can give you a date we can actually keep. If a fix is going to take time, we will say so rather than go quiet.
If you need information from this site in a different format, ask us for it. We will find a way to get it to you.
Tell us what is not working
Email connect@andeco.org. A person reads it, and a barrier you report is a barrier we can fix.
ANDECO, McLean, Virginia. This statement was last reviewed on .