Accessibility at Scholiad

Built in, not bolted on.

Accessibility is treated as part of building each page, not an afterthought.

• —Scholiad is built to be usable by everyone in the scholarly community, including people who use assistive technology.
• —The reference standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.

Concrete measures, shipped today.

Not intentions — the accessibility behaviors that are built into every page as it is authored.

• —Semantic structure — proper landmarks (header, main, sections, footer), a single clear page heading, and a logical heading order.
• —Keyboard — every control is reachable and operable by keyboard, with a visible oxblood focus ring on each interactive element.
• —Skip link — a “skip to content” link on every page.
• —Accessible names — icon-only controls (save, open, menu, account, toggles) carry descriptive names for screen readers.
• —Live updates announced — dynamic changes (a saved item, a status message, a toast) are announced to assistive technology via live regions.
• —Dialogs — pop-ups trap focus, close on Escape, and return focus to where you were.
• —Motion — the platform honors your “reduce motion” preference.
• —Right-to-left — Arabic and Persian are supported with fully mirrored (RTL) layouts.
• —Color & contrast — text meets AA contrast, and meaning is never conveyed by color alone — color is always paired with a label, icon, or position.

Scholiad conforms to WCAG 2.1 AA.

One scope boundary.

Everything Scholiad builds is held to the standard above. There is a single boundary worth naming plainly.

• —The original opportunity postings live on external institution websites that Scholiad links out to. Those third-party sites are outside Scholiad’s control and may not meet the same standard.

What it’s built and tested to work with.

• —Scholiad is built and tested to work with current versions of the major browsers and common assistive technologies — screen readers, screen magnification, speech input, and keyboard-only use.

Hit a barrier? Tell the team.

Kept current against WCAG 2.1 AA.

• —This statement is prepared and maintained by the team against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and is reviewed periodically.
• —Reference: the WCAG 2.1 guidelines (W3C).