Accessibility Statement

Reading for Everyone

Writing Café Journal exists so that writing reaches readers. That means every reader: people who are blind or have low vision, readers with dyslexia or ADHD, people who navigate by keyboard or screen reader, anyone for whom motion or bright screens are difficult, and anyone who simply reads more comfortably with larger text. We want the work our writers trust us with to be open to all of them.

Reading & Accessibility Settings

Every page includes a Reading & Accessibility panel. Open it with the round accessibility button, the one with the figure of a person, and shape the page around the way you read.

Profiles

One tap applies a set of settings chosen for a particular need: Visual impairment, Seizure-safe, Dyslexia, or ADHD. You can fine-tune anything afterward.

Display

Text size

Default, Large, Larger, or Largest.

Font

Serif, Sans, a highly Readable font, or a font designed for readers with dyslexia.

Theme

Sepia for a softer page, or Night for low light and light sensitivity.

Adjustments

Text spacing

More room between lines and letters, so text is easier to follow.

High contrast and muted colors

Sharper contrast for low vision, or softer color if bright color is tiring.

Highlight links and headings

Makes links and section headings stand out, so it's easier to find your way around a page.

Reading guide

A band that follows your place on the page, to help keep your eyes on the right line.

Hide images and stop animations

Removes images and motion for fewer distractions, or if movement is uncomfortable.

Reading tools on stories and poems

Read aloud

Listen to the piece, with pause, stop, and speeds from 0.75× to 1.5×, where your browser supports it.

Focus mode

Clears everything away except the writing itself.

Line numbers

Numbered lines on poems, useful for study, discussion, and quoting.

Line width

Wide, Medium, or Narrow columns on stories, for a comfortable line length.

Your choices apply across the whole site and are remembered the next time you visit. They're stored only in your own browser. Nothing is sent to us, and nothing is linked to you. Reset all settings at the bottom of the panel returns everything to the default.

How the Site Is Built

• A "Skip to main content" link at the top of every page lets keyboard and screen reader users go straight to the writing.
• Pages are structured with standard landmarks: header, navigation, main content, and footer, so assistive technology can move between them.
• The site adapts to phones, tablets, and desktops, and you can zoom in as far as your browser allows.
• Announcements that appear on the homepage can be closed with the Escape key.
• We don't run advertising, so nothing competes with the writing for your attention.

Our Standard

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA. We're a small, independent journal, and not every page has been formally audited, so we don't claim full conformance. We consider accessibility every time we build or change something on the site, and we fix problems as we find them.

Known Limitations

• Images that accompany stories currently use the title of the piece as their text alternative, rather than a description of the image itself. We're working on proper image descriptions.
• Links to other websites, such as Facebook, lead to pages we don't control, and their accessibility may differ from ours.

Tell Us What Isn't Working

If anything on the site is hard to read, reach, or use, we want to know. Email us at editors@writingcafejournal.com or use our Contact page. It helps to tell us which page you were on, what you were trying to do, and, if you're comfortable sharing, what device or assistive technology you use.

If you'd like a story or poem in another format, ask us. We'll do our best to provide it.