Accessibility

Arts of Bodhi is a reading site, and a reading site has one job: to be readable, by everyone, on whatever device or assistive technology a reader brings to it. This page states the target, what the site already does, where it currently falls short, and how to tell us about a barrier.

Conformance target

The site aims at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. That is the goal, not a certified claim. The site has not been through a formal third-party audit. Where this page says the site meets a criterion, it is an honest internal assessment; where it falls short, the gap is named below rather than hidden.

What the site does

• Semantic structure. Every page uses real landmarks (header, main, navigation, footer), a single top-level heading, and a logical heading order, so screen-reader and keyboard navigation follow the visible reading order.
• Skip link. A keyboard-reachable “skip to content” link is the first focusable element on every page.
• Keyboard operable. All navigation, the theme toggle, and the search page are reachable and operable by keyboard, with a visible focus outline on every interactive element.
• No motion by default. There is almost no animation, and what little exists is disabled for readers whose system requests reduced motion.
• Two themes. The default dark “sumi” theme is the brand; a light “Kinpaku” theme is available for readers who need a light background or higher perceived contrast. Theme choice is remembered locally with no cookie and no tracking.
• Self-hosted text. All fonts are self-hosted and the body text scales with the browser’s font-size and zoom settings without breaking layout.
• Described images. Every artwork image carries descriptive alternative text and fixed dimensions, so the page does not reflow as images load and non-visual readers receive a real description of the object.
• No barriers by omission. There is no advertising, no pop-up, no interstitial, no autoplaying media, no cookie wall, and no required account.

Known limitations

We would rather name these than let a reader discover them.

• Muted secondary text contrast. Some low-emphasis text (captions, source tables, metadata labels) is currently rendered in a muted grey that does not yet meet the WCAG AA 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal-size text in either theme. The primary reading text does meet AA. Raising the muted tone to AA is an open item and is being worked; until it lands, readers who need higher contrast should use browser or OS high-contrast settings, which the site respects.
• No formal audit. Conformance is self-assessed. An external review is intended before it is claimed as certified.
• Source-language text. Japanese, Sanskrit, and Chinese terms appear in their original scripts alongside transliteration. Screen readers may not always switch language for inline foreign script; the transliteration is always present so meaning is not lost.

Reporting a barrier

If anything on this site is hard or impossible to use with your assistive technology, that is a defect we want to fix. Please report it through the contact page, describing the page, what you were trying to do, and the assistive technology and browser you were using. Access barriers are treated as priority corrections, not as feature requests.

This statement will be updated as limitations are closed and as the conformance target is formally reviewed.