Accessibility.

The site is built to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.2, at level AA. That is the standard we test against, and the one we mean when we say a page is finished. Where a page falls short, we would rather hear about it than not.

• Every text colour meets a contrast of at least 4.5:1 against the ground it sits on, at every size it is used.
• Everything can be reached and used with a keyboard alone. Focus is always visible as a ring, and it is never trapped except inside an open dialog, which the Escape key closes.
• A switch marked Still, in the top bar and at the foot of every page, turns every reveal, drift and scroll effect off and replaces films with stills. The system reduced-motion setting does the same automatically.
• Films are silent, never autoplay with sound, and each carries a Pause control. Photographs have descriptions. Decorative numerals and split words are hidden from readers and described in full sentences instead.
• Headings are in order, sections are labelled regions, forms have visible labels above every field, and errors are written out in words beside the field they belong to and announced.
• Text is set in relative units and reflows down to a narrow phone without sideways scrolling. Targets are at least 44 pixels. Body text is never smaller than 17 pixels on a phone.
• The age door and the mobile index are proper dialogs: focus moves to the heading, the rest of the page is inert, and focus returns where it was when they close.

• The films are ambient footage without speech, so they carry no captions or transcript. Each one has a written description instead.
• Laboratory certificates available to members are documents issued by the labs themselves, and some are not tagged for readers. Ask and we will read one to you or send the figures as text.
• The site needs a modern browser. On an older one it may fall back to plain, unstyled pages, which remain readable.
• The site has been checked in house with a keyboard and with VoiceOver. It has not yet had an independent audit; that is planned before launch.

Write to us and say which page, what you were trying to do, and what happened. A person reads these, usually the same day, and we aim to put a fix live within two weeks. If you need something here in another form — large print, plain text, or read aloud — ask and we will send it.

The site is written in HTML with a little CSS and JavaScript. It works without JavaScript: every form posts, every page renders, and nothing stays hidden. Type is set in Afacad, with a metric-matched fallback so text does not jump as the face arrives. This statement was last reviewed on the date at the top.