Accessibility

Recipes are no use to you if you can't read them. This page says what we're aiming for, what we've actually done, and — just as importantly — what we know still doesn't work well.

What we're aiming for

We're working toward WCAG 2.1 Level AA across selfmadecook.com.

To be clear about where we are: this Site has not been independently audited, and we are not claiming full conformance. Treat this as a statement of intent and an honest progress report, not a certificate.

What's in place

• Plain, semantic HTML with real headings, lists, and landmarks — recipe ingredients are a list and steps are a numbered list, so a screen reader can navigate them properly.
• A "Skip to content" link as the first thing on every page.
• Every page works with the keyboard alone, with a visible focus outline on links, buttons, and form fields.
• Every form field has an accessible name — a visible label where the form has room for one, and a screen-reader label on the single-field email boxes that don't.
• Text contrast on the main body, buttons, and category tiles has been measured against the 4.5:1 requirement rather than eyeballed.
• Alt text on recipe photographs.
• Nothing auto-plays. Recipe videos load only when you click the play button.
• Pages reflow on small screens and at high zoom, and text can be resized without breaking the layout.
• Recipes print cleanly, which is its own kind of accessibility if a screen is the problem.

Known gaps

These are the things we know are not good enough yet:

• The Site has not been tested end to end with screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver. We've built to the standard, but we haven't sat down and listened to every page.
• Alt text on recipe photos is usually the name of the dish rather than a real description of what's in the pan. It identifies the picture; it doesn't yet describe it.
• Content we don't control isn't covered: the embedded YouTube player, the Gumroad checkout, and the advertising served by Google all have their own accessibility behaviour.
• The cookbook PDFs and EPUBs have not been tagged or tested for accessibility. If you use assistive technology and want a book in a format that works for you, ask — see below.
• Colour contrast has been checked on the main interface, but not on every single component of every page.
• No page carries a formal accessibility conformance report.

Tell us what's broken

If something on this Site doesn't work for you — a page you can't navigate, text you can't read, a recipe you can't get to — please tell us. It's the fastest way anything on the list above gets fixed.

Use the contact page or email hello@selfmadecook.com. It helps if you can say which page, what you were trying to do, and what you're using (browser, phone or computer, and any assistive technology). We aim to reply within five working days, and if a fix will take longer than that we'll tell you what we're doing and get you the recipe another way in the meantime — reading it out in an email if that's what it takes. Don't worry, I got you.