Accessibility

Last updated 2 November 2026

Howardites is for everyone, from five-year-olds to experts, so it should work for people who use a keyboard instead of a mouse, a screen reader, a magnifier, voice control, or settings that reduce motion or enlarge text. This page says how well it does that, where it still falls short, and how to tell us when something gets in your way.

The standard we aim for

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 at level AA. These are the international guidelines that UK public bodies are asked to follow, and they cover things such as text contrast, keyboard use, labels, headings and moving content. We believe the site partly meets level AA: most pages do, and the exceptions are listed below.

What should work for you

• Keyboard: every link, button, menu, test question and pop-up can be reached with the Tab key and used with Enter or Space. A "Skip to content" link is the first thing on every page. Esc closes menus, pop-up panels and the congratulations video.
• Seeing where you are: the item that has keyboard focus always shows a clear outline, and it is never hidden under the bar at the top of the page.
• Screen readers: pages are written in English and say so, use headings in order, and mark the header, menu, main content and footer so you can jump between them. Icon buttons (sound, language, share, close) have spoken names. Form fields have labels, and test results and error messages are read out when they appear.
• Pictures: pictures that carry meaning have a text description; decorative ones are hidden from screen readers.
• Text and zoom: text meets the contrast levels in the guidelines, and pages can be zoomed to 400% or viewed on a 320-pixel-wide screen without scrolling sideways (except wide data tables, which scroll inside their own box).
• Reduced motion: if your device is set to reduce motion, animations are switched off, the news strip stops scrolling, and passing a test shows a still congratulations picture instead of a full-screen video.
• Sound: the speaker button at the top of every page turns all sound effects off, and the choice is remembered. No information is given by sound alone.
• No time limits: lessons, quizzes and tests can be taken at your own pace.
• Your language: the globe button translates the site inside your own browser.

What we have checked

In November 2026 we tested the shared parts of every page (header, menu, footer, pop-ups) and a sample of each kind of page: the home page, Learn, lessons, lesson quizzes and final tests, the Kids' zone, account and progress pages, meteorite pages, the catalogue, the map, the games, calculators, forms and the legal pages. We used automated testing tools that check pages against WCAG 2.2 A and AA, and then went through the pages by hand with only a keyboard, at a phone-sized width, with reduced motion switched on, and with zoom. The problems found were fixed at the time, including colour contrast, heading order, keyboard play for the word search, focus returning to the right place when a menu closes, focus being hidden under the top bar, and the congratulations video on devices set to reduce motion.

We have not yet had the site tested by an outside accessibility specialist or by disabled users, and automated tools cannot find every problem. That is why your reports matter.

Known limits

• The interactive map shows meteorites as coloured dots. The dots can be hard to use without a mouse or a touch screen, and colour is only part of the key. The same meteorites, with all their details, can be searched and listed in the catalogue, which works fully with a keyboard and a screen reader.
• The scrolling news strip under the top bar moves continuously. It pauses while the pointer is over it or it has keyboard focus, and it stops completely when your device is set to reduce motion. Screen readers hear it as a single link to the full list of news on the Latest page.
• The congratulations video plays full screen by itself when you pass a test, unless your device is set to reduce motion. It has music but no speech, the score is read out to screen readers, and Skip, Esc or a tap closes it at once. It ends by itself after about 20 seconds.
• Copying text is switched off on most pages. Screen readers, magnifiers and voice control are not affected, but tools that read aloud only the text you highlight may not work. Reading the whole page aloud, or your device's own reader, still works.
• Some games rely on seeing pictures or a grid: memory match uses pictures for the youngest players and the word search is a grid of letters (it can be played with the arrow keys and Enter). The same facts are covered by the quiz and questions and answers, which work fully with a screen reader.
• Things we don't control: adverts, Google's cookie-choice message and the in-browser translation come from other companies and may not meet the same standard. Translations are made by machine and can be wrong.
• Photos of meteorites come from shared picture libraries. Their descriptions usually give the meteorite's name rather than describe what the rock looks like.

Tell us about a problem

If something on Howardites is hard or impossible for you to use, please tell us on our contact page. It helps to say which page it was, what you were trying to do, and, if you can, what device, browser or assistive technology you use. You don't need an account. We read every message, reply through the site, and aim to fix accessibility problems quickly. If something can't be fixed straight away, we will tell you, and we can usually give you the same information another way.