Accessibility
This site is built so that it works equally well with a keyboard, a screen reader, magnification and on small screens. The benchmark is WCAG 2.1 at level AA.
What is in place#
- Full keyboard operation. Every control can be reached and the focus indicator is clearly visible. A skip link at the very top jumps straight to the content.
- Structure, not appearance. Headings, lists and tables are marked up as such rather than imitated with formatting. The previous version of this site consisted of nested layout tables; none of that remains.
- Contrast checked. Every colour pair reaches at least 4.5:1; body text sits at 14.7:1.
- Light and dark appearance. At the top right, under Appearance, you choose what suits you: Automatic follows your operating system, while Light and Dark fix the setting. Your choice is remembered for your next visit.
- Contents on either side. Next to it, under Contents, you choose which side the specification's table of contents appears on. In the document the content always comes before the navigation, so tabbing and screen readers reach the text first.
- Expanding and collapsing chapters. Every entry with subsections has its own small toggle in front of it. The entry itself remains a link and takes you to the page; only the toggle opens or closes the branch. The toggles are 24 × 24 pixels and so are easy to hit even with imprecise pointing.
- Freely scalable. All measurements are relative; at 200 % magnification nothing is lost, and wide tables scroll within themselves while remaining reachable by keyboard.
- No motion without reason. If you have asked your system for reduced motion, you get no animations.
- External links are marked – visibly with a symbol and audibly for screen readers. They open in the same window so that the back button keeps working.
- No connection to third-party servers. Fonts and scripts are served from this site; no cookies are set and no tracking pixels are embedded.
Keyboard shortcuts#
| Key | Effect |
|---|---|
| Tab | move to the next control |
| / | jump to the search box |
| ↑ ↓ | move through the search results |
| Enter | open the selected result |
| Esc | close the search results |
Without JavaScript#
The site remains fully readable and every page stays reachable. Three conveniences fall away:
- Full-text search is unavailable; the table of contents and the links in the text still lead to every page.
- The settings at the top right have no effect. The site is then light and the table of contents sits on the right.
- The expand and collapse toggles are missing. You then see the top level and the branch you are currently in. Clicking a chapter opens its page, where that branch is expanded — so every page is at most one step away.
Known limitations#
- Version 1.34 in the archive is the unaltered material of its day. It uses frames and is not accessible. It is kept unchanged for the record; the current standard v3 is fully accessible.
- The PDF edition of the specification has not been optimised for accessibility. The same content is available accessibly as the specification.
- The barcode example carried over from the old site is an image with only brief alternative text.
Feedback#
Have you run into a barrier? Write to us via the IBTC contact form (external site) — we will put it right.