Accessibility Statement

Last updated 6 September 2026. Where this site stands against WCAG 2.1 AA today, including what still needs work.

The short version. We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 level AA. The site works with a keyboard alone, respects reduced-motion settings, and has no known critical barriers. If something blocks you, email contact@hire-web-designer.com and we will fix it.

Our commitment

We build websites for a living. A site of ours that people cannot use would be an odd thing to sell from.

We aim to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 at level AA. That is the standard referenced by the UK Equality Act 2010, the European Accessibility Act, and courts applying the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Accessibility is not a state you reach and stop. This statement describes where the site stands today and what we are still working on.

What we have done

Specific measures, rather than a general promise:

Keyboard operation. Every link, button, menu, and expandable section works without a mouse. Focus is always visible as a blue outline, never removed.
Skip link. A "Skip to content" link is the first thing a keyboard or screen reader user reaches, so the navigation can be bypassed.
Focus management. Opening the mobile menu moves focus into it and traps it there. Escape closes it and returns focus to the button that opened it.
Colour contrast. Body and heading text is tested against WCAG AA thresholds. Colour is never the only way information is conveyed.
Reduced motion. The one animation on the site is disabled entirely for anyone whose system requests reduced motion.
Touch targets. Buttons and navigation links are at least 44 by 44 pixels.
Text scaling. Text can be enlarged to 200% without loss of content or horizontal scrolling.
Structure. Headings run in order without skipping levels, tables use proper header cells, and landmarks mark the header, navigation, main content, and footer.
Responsive layout. The site reflows to a single column with no horizontal scrolling at any width down to 320 pixels.

Known limitations

Being honest about gaps is more useful than claiming full conformance.

[Automated and manual testing has not yet been completed across all 45 pages. Update this list once it has.]
Where we link to external sites such as platform documentation, we do not control their accessibility.
[If you add PDFs, video, or embedded third-party tools, list them here — PDFs and embeds are the most common failure points.]

We are not currently aware of any barrier that prevents someone completing the main task on this site, which is requesting a quote. If you find one, it is a defect and we will treat it as one.

How this site was tested

Testing to date has covered keyboard-only navigation, layout and reflow from 320 to 1512 pixels, focus visibility and focus order, reduced-motion behaviour, and heading structure.

[Add: date of last audit, tools used such as axe DevTools or WAVE, and whether any screen reader testing with NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver has been carried out.]

Automated tools catch roughly a third of accessibility issues. Manual keyboard and screen reader testing is what finds the rest, and we recommend the same to our clients.

Tell us about a problem

If any part of this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, we want to know. That includes problems this statement does not mention.

Email contact@hire-web-designer.com with the page address and a description of what happened. How we handle what you send is covered by our privacy policy. You do not need to know the technical cause.

We aim to acknowledge within [5] working days and to tell you when a fix will land. If we cannot fix something quickly, we will offer another way to get what you need, including completing a quote request over email or by phone.

Enforcement

If you are not satisfied with how we respond, you can escalate.

United Kingdom: the Equality Advisory and Support Service, which handles complaints under the Equality Act 2010.
European Union: the national enforcement body for the European Accessibility Act in your country of residence.
United States: the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

We would much rather resolve it directly and quickly.

Accessibility in the work we sell

This matters commercially as well as ethically, so it is worth stating plainly.

Every site we build is designed to meet WCAG 2.1 AA: semantic structure, keyboard operability, tested colour contrast, meaningful alternative text, and labelled form fields. This is part of the scope agreed in the project scope clause. It is part of the base price, not an upsell.

Two things are worth knowing if you are commissioning a site. Accessibility is a legal requirement in most markets, not a nice-to-have — and since the European Accessibility Act took effect in June 2025, it applies to a great many businesses selling to EU consumers. And it is far cheaper to build in than to retrofit; adding it to a finished site typically means rebuilding a good part of it.

We will tell you where your content choices create accessibility problems, such as text baked into images or videos without captions, even when that is not what you wanted to hear.

Statement details

This statement applies to hire-web-designer.com and all pages on it.

It was prepared on [date] and is reviewed [annually, or whenever the site changes materially].

Conformance status: [partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 AA — update to "fully conformant" only after a complete audit]. Partially conformant means most of the standard is met but some parts have not yet been verified.