For everyone

Accessibility Statement

Last updated: September 17, 2026

We want as much of this site as possible to be usable by everyone. What follows is an honest account of where it stands, including the parts that are not good enough.

Conformance claim

Written in Real Stars partially conforms to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Partially conforms means some parts of the content do not fully conform. The specific part that does not, and cannot without becoming a different product, is the 3D sky itself, which is described under "Where it falls short" below. The conventional parts of the site, the landing page, the setup form, the panels, the modals and these static pages, are not currently producing any automated WCAG 2.1 A or AA failures.

What was tested, and how

An automated tool of this kind reliably catches only part of what WCAG covers, commonly estimated at a third to a half. A clean automated run is a floor, not a certificate, and this statement does not present it as one.

What that audit found and what was fixed

The first run found three failures, all since corrected:

• The Speed and Glow sliders in the sky controls had visible text beside them but no programmatic label, so a screen reader announced them as unlabelled sliders. They are now properly associated <label> elements.
• The photo chooser and the date field in the setup card had the same problem, and now carry explicit accessible names.
• The on-screen hint text under the sky measured 4.24:1 against its background, below the 4.5:1 minimum for text that size. It was being dimmed to 85% opacity; it is now drawn at full opacity and measures about 5.5:1.

What's in place

• A skip-to-content link on every page, and visible focus outlines on every interactive element.
• The top navigation bar is ordinary links, operable by keyboard, with the current page marked for screen readers and a menu button that states whether it is open.
• On the Shop page the size choice is a real radio group with a legend, so arrow keys move between sizes, and the price change is announced.
• Tables that scroll sideways on a phone can be scrolled with the keyboard.
• prefers-reduced-motion is honoured throughout: the animated starfield, the landing page's motion and the rail's ignition effects all fall back to a static or instantly-settled state.
• The landing page's constellation-shaped scroll indicator has proper ARIA roles, labels and full keyboard navigation.
• Every form control has a programmatic label or accessible name.
• Colour is never the only signal: text accompanies every state, including chosen format, chosen song and applied settings.
• The list of stars behind any name, the constellation index in the app and the CSV or PDF catalogue that comes with a plate, is real readable text: every star's designation, coordinates, magnitude and distance, usable by a screen reader or any text tool, entirely independently of the 3D view.

Where it falls short

• The core experience is a WebGL canvas operated by dragging, scrolling and, in travel mode, the WASD keys. There is no screen-reader equivalent of the visual constellation, and looking around the main sky view still has no keyboard alternative to dragging. This is the single biggest gap and it is not a small fix.
• The photo-to-stars face reveal is inherently visual and has no text equivalent.
• Ten colour-contrast results over the animated canvas could not be measured automatically and have not yet been checked by hand against the range of backgrounds the starfield actually produces.
• No testing has been done with an actual screen reader, at high zoom, or with a magnifier. Until that happens, the claim above rests on automated results and code review only.

If the visual sky isn't usable for you

The premise of this product, that every star is real and checkable, means the underlying data was always meant to stand on its own as text. The constellation index inside the app, and the CSV or PDF catalogue included with any plate, give the complete list of stars by designation and exact coordinates, in a form a screen reader or any other tool can read directly. If you want that list for a name without buying anything, ask and we will send it.

Alternative formats and assistance

If any part of this site, or any document it produces, is not usable with the tools you rely on, we will provide the same information another way on request: a plain-text star list, a described version of what a sky contains, or help completing an order over email. There is no charge and you do not need to explain why you are asking.

Where we stand legally

Written in Real Stars is a sole proprietorship in Ontario with no employees. Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and its Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation, the requirement to bring public websites to WCAG 2.0 Level AA applies to designated public sector organisations and to large organisations of 50 or more employees, so it does not currently bind an operation this size, and the three-yearly compliance reporting obligation, which starts at 20 employees, does not either. We are stating a WCAG 2.1 AA target anyway because the obligation not to exclude people does not scale with headcount. We also sell into the United States, where the Americans with Disabilities Act has been applied to consumer websites, and we would rather be genuinely usable than argue about which threshold applies.

Feedback

If something here is difficult or impossible to use, please tell us at writteninrealstars@gmail.com, call (647) 491-2051, or use our contact page, whichever suits you. We aim to reply within five business days. We cannot honestly promise the 3D sky will ever be fully accessible, given what it fundamentally is, but we do want to know, we will say plainly whether something is fixable, and we will fix the things that are.

Review schedule

This statement is reviewed when the site changes materially, and at least once a year. The next planned step is the manual screen-reader and keyboard pass listed above, after which this page will be corrected to match whatever that finds, including downgrading the claim if it turns out to be too generous.

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