Accessibility is part of how we build, not something bolted on at the end. We design every site to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA, and this site is held to the same bar. If you ever hit a wall, tell us — we want to fix it.
01 Our commitment
We aim to make hellopaleblue.com — and every site we build — usable by people of all abilities. Our reference is WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the standard most widely recognized in law and practice for accessible web content. We treat accessibility as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time checkbox, and we improve things as we find them.
02 What that means in practice
Building to WCAG 2.1 AA shapes real, concrete choices on the page:
- Every interactive element can be reached and operated with a keyboard alone, with a clearly visible focus outline.
- Images and icons carry text alternatives where they convey meaning, and are hidden from assistive tech where they're purely decorative.
- Color contrast is checked against the AA thresholds so text stays legible.
- Pages use semantic, structured markup so screen readers can make sense of them, and forms have properly associated labels.
- Decorative motion is kept minimal and respects "reduce motion" system settings; the pointer animation is desktop-only and never required to use the site.
- Layouts are responsive and zoomable, down to small screens and up to enlarged text.
03 Where this site stands
This site is built to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and we consider it substantially conformant. As with any living site, we're honest that conformance is a moving target: as we add pages and content, we test and correct as we go. We don't claim perfection — we claim that we're paying attention and that we'll act on what we find.
04 Known limitations
In the interest of being straight with you, a couple of items are on our list to refine:
- A few heading sequences aren't strictly nested level-by-level; this doesn't block access but we're tidying it for cleaner screen-reader navigation.
- Typefaces load from a third-party font service; if it's ever unavailable, the site falls back to readable system fonts.
If you run into something not listed here, we'd genuinely like to know.
05 Accessibility for our clients
If you hire us, accessibility comes built in by default — not as a premium upsell. For government, public-sector, and regulated work, we also offer formal Section 508 / WCAG conformance as a scoped add-on, including testing and documentation, agreed in writing before we begin. If your project carries specific accessibility obligations, tell us early and we'll build to them.
06 Tell us if something's in your way
If any part of this site is hard to use, email hello@hellopaleblue.com with the page and what happened. A real person will reply within one business day and fix what we can, as quickly as we can. If you need information from the site in a different format in the meantime, ask and we'll get it to you.
Built to be used by everyone — and if something's in your way, tell us and we'll put it right.