Accessibility

A reference work is unreadable if it isn't readable to everyone.

Epoché Clinical is built to WCAG 2.2 AA in full, with AAA contrast on body and primary-accent text. The site also carries a trauma-informed layer that the WCAG standard doesn't reach. Every rule below is a hard requirement, not a preference.

Conformance claim

This site targets WCAG 2.2 AA at minimum, and clears AAA for body text, primary accent colors, links, citations, and most interactive states. The contrast budget is documented in the design system's §09 — every text token has been measured against the page background (#F5F1E8, "paper") and the result is recorded.

Last audited: 2026-05-12 · Re-audited on every release.

What this means in practice

  • Keyboard-only navigation. Every interactive control on every page can be reached, operated, and dismissed with a keyboard alone. The first focusable element on every page is a "Skip to content" link.
  • Visible focus indicators. Every link, button, and form control shows a 2px indigo ring with 3px offset on focus. Never disabled.
  • Screen-reader landmarks. Every page uses semantic <header>, <nav aria-label>, <main id="main">, and <footer> elements. Headings follow strict order — one h1 per page; never skipped levels.
  • Color is never the sole signal. Evidence tiers, modality categories, and status states all carry a glyph or label in addition to color. The 16-category taxonomy was verified under deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia, and achromatopsia simulations.
  • Target sizes. Primary controls are 44×44px (Apple HIG); chips and inline chrome at 32px; 24px is the absolute minimum (per WCAG 2.5.8).
  • Motion preferences honored. Transitions collapse to near-zero when prefers-reduced-motion: reduce is set. No auto-advancing carousels, no parallax, no animation that crosses 5° of visual field.
  • Reflow and zoom. Content reflows at 400% zoom without horizontal scroll, except for the knowledge graph and wide comparison tables (which offer linearized alternatives).

Trauma-informed design

The site documents trauma modalities, survivor vignettes, and clinical detail that can be activating. Standard WCAG doesn't address this — these rules do.

  • Quick exit. Every vignette page carries a "Quick Exit" button (bottom-right) and an Esc-Esc keyboard binding. Both replace the current history entry before redirecting to weather.gov — so the browser's back button doesn't return to the vignette.
  • Content advisories. Pages that describe abuse, suicidality, self-harm, or graphic clinical detail lead with a labelled advisory that names the specific content, not vague "may contain difficult material" language.
  • Predictability. Global navigation, page structure, and language register stay constant across modalities. No surprise modals, no auto-playing media, no flashing.
  • Safety footer. Pages with clinical content footer with crisis resources (988 in the US, region-aware where possible).
  • Language. The voice rules in the design system forbid pathologizing constructions and reinforce person-first or identity-first usage per current consensus in each domain.

Cognitive accessibility

  • Plain-language summaries. Every modality opens with a 60-word summary at ≤9th-grade reading level (Flesch-Kincaid measured; the report is generated on every build and used to flag rewrites).
  • Reading mode. Long-form modality and vignette pages support a reading mode that collapses citation markers, removes the side rail, and increases line-height to 1.85. State persists per device. (Shipping in v1.1.)
  • No time limits. Session state for the comparison tool, filters, and learning paths persists in localStorage indefinitely. If a server timeout is ever unavoidable, the user gets a 20-second warning and a one-click extend.
  • Breadcrumbs. Every detail page shows the path that got you there: Modalities › Cognitive-Behavioral › ACT.

Known exemptions

Documented & accepted
  • Paper-grain texture overlay uses mix-blend-mode: multiply at 0.5 opacity — verified not to reduce body text below 13:1.
  • Italics are used liberally in pull-quotes. A roman-only toggle is planned but not yet implemented.
  • Type below 14px on Newsreader falls back to Inter automatically — verified that small-text hinting is clean.
  • Reading-mode toggle ships in v1.1; dark tokens are already declared in the design system.
  • Glossary on hover/tap uses author-marked terms; an auto-linker is deferred to v1.1 to avoid false positives in clinical material.

Testing methodology

  • Static contrast — measured against the canonical token table on every release.
  • Keyboard navigation — full traverse without mouse, every release.
  • Screen reader — NVDA + Firefox, VoiceOver + Safari, JAWS + Chrome.
  • Zoom and reflow — manual at 200% and 400% in Chrome and Safari.
  • Color-blind safety — Sim Daltonism and Stark on every taxonomy change.
  • Cognitive load — Hemingway and Flesch-Kincaid on every modality publish.

Contact

If anything on this site isn't working for you — a missing alt text, a focus trap, a screen-reader announcement, a contrast failure, a content advisory we should have written — please write to matthewsorg@gmail.com. Issues raised by users with disabilities are triaged at the top of the queue, with a 5-business-day response commitment.