Accessibility Statement

This list is by no means a complete list of requirements for WCAG 2.1 compliance, EN 301 549, and the EAA, European Accessibility Act, 2025. We (the web developer and myself) have endeavoured to include critical items to make our website accessible to people with diverse abilities and disabilities, by offering a multi sensory journey through written word, audio and video.

The work of keeping a website in compliance is never done. It’s an ongoing process throughout the life of the site.It is very easy for a website to drift out of compliance as people add content, features get added, and plugins get updated. New font colours are added that don’t meet the minimum contrast guidelines, for example. Or, someone adds new images without adding alt tags.

Accessibility compliance is not a one-time deal; any updates to the site will be made with accessibility in mind.

We do not have control over 3rd party cookies and will minimise their use where possible. We will also advocate to the companies if their plug-ins are not compliant.

We use WordPress with Divi as our CSS for styling. Some of the DIVI ARIA attributes for buttons and fields do not provide additional descriptive labels, **Note: We are working to rectify this, as are the team at Divi and Divi Modules. Divi 5 will be released with updates and I have been assured they are working on accessibility. I will keep you updated on our progress as a web accessibility advocate for over 10 years. Visit my profile on the LinkedIn platform.

Appearance

•Text is at least 16 px in size. — where possible, text has been set at 16px for easy reading and fluid (some large areas have been adjusted for mobile)

•Colour contrast rules are followed for people with low vision or colour blindness

•States are not communicated just by colour there are other options provided also

Links

•<a> tag is used for links

•Links in body are distinguished from surrounding text (usually by underlining)

•Link text in the Divi theme is not specifically identified for a specific role in Aria, we are advocating that Divi make this accessible for developers to change the role name from other than ‘link’.

Structure

Only one h1 per page
Headings for each page are in sequence fro H1-H6
Heading levels are not skipped
Aria labels do not always have a meaningful description (Divi)

Images

•Images have relevant alt text or captions unless purely cosmetic

•Background images are purely decorative and used sparingly

•Sliders and carousels are labeled with left and right arrows, images and text are labeled and work well with a screen reader

Videos

•Video does not auto-play

•Video has labeled play icon

•Video can be paused

•Video has description text

•Video has accurate transcript and captions supplied by Martin Blake who is the creative behind the photography and video content

Some Common Website Features
that Are Not Accessibility Compliant

Most social embeds and embedded ads are not accessible.

Animation effects may not accessible.

Auto-playing videos has not been implemented on this website as it traps the visitor in a loop and they cannot exit. YouTube videos and Google Maps are not completely accessible, strictly speaking (though most of my website clients are satisfied with using them on otherwise accessible sites)

Any linked PDFs need to be re-generated with accessibility in mind, and all embedded videos need captions or transcripts

Rachel Kane Design

I am an interaction design contractor, based in West Wicklow and I have co designed many projects with Robin from Leanweb.eu. I have been a web accessibility advocate since 2012 and have been involved in research to investigate the barriers faced by people with a disability when accessing online content. Our CMS we use is WordPress which is layered with DIVI for functionality and styling purposes. This website was designed with accessibility and conformance to the Directive EN 301 549 (EU) 2016/2102 as a priority. While every effort has been made to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards for accessibility and usability, it is not always possible to do so in all areas of the website. This may include third party applications, social media feed aggregation, and third party map integrations, like Google maps. We are continually working to improve the user experience for everyone. If you experience any difficulty in using this website, please let me know. we are committed to making this website as accessible as possible.
Thank you, Rachel
Email:info@rachelkanedesign.ie