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Accessibility Statement

WCAG 2.2 AA conformance status, known issues, roadmap, and feedback channel.

Version 2.0
Last updated 2026-05-17
Questions legal@alphabell.com

1. Our commitment

alphabell is committed to making the dev.alphabell.com Site accessible to as wide a range of users as our resources permit. Accessibility is treated as part of the structural soundness of the Site, not as a separate workstream.

2. Conformance standard

We target conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at level AA ("WCAG 2.2 AA"), published by the W3C. Where individual success criteria are not yet met, the gap is documented in Known issues below.

3. Conformance status

The Site is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 AA as of the date of this statement. The phrasing follows the W3C's recommended conformance vocabulary: most of the Site meets the standard, while some content does not yet fully conform.

4. What conforms

  • Semantic HTML structure throughout the Site, including correct use of <main>, <nav>, <article>, <section>, and heading hierarchy.
  • Skip-to-content link on every page (top of the document, becomes visible on keyboard focus).
  • Visible keyboard focus indicators on all interactive elements.
  • Sufficient colour contrast — the Site palette passes WCAG AA contrast ratios in both light and dark modes for body copy and key UI elements.
  • Form labels associated with inputs by for/id linkage; required fields explicitly indicated.
  • Logical tab order matching visual reading order.
  • Reduced-motion preference honoured — the Site's optional reveal animations are disabled when prefers-reduced-motion: reduce is set.
  • Alt text on substantive images. Decorative SVGs and dividers carry aria-hidden="true".

5. Known issues

  • Some inline SVG news heroes. The decorative SVG illustrations at the top of news articles carry aria-hidden="true" but, in three cases, render embedded text that is decorative rather than informational. We are reviewing whether the embedded text should remain or be removed entirely; tracked as accessibility issue ab-a11y-021.
  • Filter chips on /publications and /careers. The filter chip interactions are operable by keyboard but do not currently announce a state change to screen readers when a chip is activated. We are adding aria-pressed state and a live-region count announcement; tracked as ab-a11y-022.
  • Code blocks in publication pages. Some code blocks (BibTeX, pre-formatted spec text) are long enough that they introduce horizontal scrolling within the article column. They are reachable by keyboard and announced as code by screen readers, but the scroll experience is not ideal; tracked as ab-a11y-023.
  • Newsletter form success state. The success message after a newsletter submission is rendered but not announced via an ARIA live region; tracked as ab-a11y-024.
  • Embedded third-party content. The Dicebear avatars used on contributor bio pages are served as SVGs from a third party and carry the third party's accessibility characteristics, not ours. We provide descriptive alt text but do not control the underlying SVG markup.

6. Roadmap

We schedule accessibility work alongside other Site engineering, with the goal of resolving all currently tracked issues by 2026-Q3. The roadmap is:

  • 2026-Q2: filter-chip ARIA state, live-region count announcement (ab-a11y-022, ab-a11y-024).
  • 2026-Q3: code-block scroll experience, news hero SVG text review (ab-a11y-021, ab-a11y-023).
  • 2026-Q4: a full external accessibility audit, including assistive-technology testing across NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver.

7. Third-party content

The Site embeds two classes of third-party content: cookie-less analytics from Plausible (no DOM presence, no accessibility impact) and Dicebear-generated avatar SVGs on contributor bio pages (accessibility of the SVG markup is controlled by the third party). Where third-party content does not meet our standard, we annotate it on the page and provide a textual alternative.

8. Feedback

If you encounter an accessibility issue on the Site, please tell us. We treat accessibility reports as P1 issues for the engineering rotation. Reports can be sent to accessibility@alphabell.com. We will acknowledge receipt within 3 working days and respond substantively within 14 working days.

9. Last reviewed

This statement was last reviewed on 2026-05-17. We review at minimum every six months and after any substantive Site engineering change.