Accessibility

This site is built to be usable by everybody, including people using a screen reader, a keyboard only, magnification, or a phone at three in the morning on very little sleep.

The standard we work to

We aim to conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at level AA. That is the standard named in UK practice by the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and the European standard EN 301 549, and it is the benchmark used when considering the duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.

Marion is not a public sector body, so those regulations do not bind us. We hold ourselves to them anyway, because the people most likely to need this site at 3am include disabled parents and the parents of disabled children.

A note for readers outside the UK: the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 are United States law and do not apply to a UK site. Both are measured against the same WCAG success criteria, so a site meeting WCAG 2.2 AA meets the technical bar they set, but we describe our duty under UK law rather than claiming compliance with a statute that does not apply to us.

What that means in practice

• Keyboard only. Every link, button, disclosure and scrollable table can be reached and operated from the keyboard, with a visible focus ring. There are no keyboard traps, and nothing depends on hovering.
• Screen readers. Proper landmarks, headings in order, and breadcrumbs on every page inside a section. Every illustration carries a short title and a longer written description that says what the picture says.
• Contrast. Every colour pairing on the site is checked automatically against WCAG in both the light and the dark theme, and the build genuinely fails if any text drops below 4.5:1 or any interface border below 3:1. We test that the gate still fires by deliberately breaking a colour.
• Zoom and reflow. Readable at 200% zoom, and at 400% on a narrow screen, with no sideways scrolling. Wide tables scroll inside their own box, and that box can be reached by keyboard.
• Motion. The only movement is a slight lift when you hover a card, and the movement itself is removed, not just shortened, if your system asks for reduced motion.
• No JavaScript needed. The only script sets the light or dark theme, and the theme button is hidden if scripts are unavailable rather than left there not working. With scripts blocked, everything still reads and works.
• Dark mode follows your system setting, and the button in the header overrides it. Your choice is remembered.
• High contrast and forced colours are supported, and the site prints legibly in black and white, including the helpline numbers.
• Plain language. Short pages, each opening with the answer, and no page that has to be read in full to be useful.

Where we know we fall short

Saying this plainly is part of the standard, not an admission of defeat.

• The support directory is long, because it is complete. We have split it as far as we sensibly can, but it is still the densest thing here.
• We have tested with automated checks and by hand. We have not been able to test with a wide range of real assistive technology users, which is the test that matters most.
• Some of the illustrations carry detail that is also in the text beside them. If images are off you lose nothing, but the descriptions are long in places.
• Text inside the illustrations is drawn at a fixed size. It scales when you zoom the page, and everything it says is repeated in the written description, but it does not respond to a browser text-size setting on its own.
• There is no site search. You can reach any page from the main menu, the section menus, the related topics, or the page listing everything on the Tonight page.

Tell us if something does not work

If any part of this site is hard to use, or you need something here in another format, we want to know. That is a fault on our side, not yours.

If you are unhappy with how an organisation responds to an accessibility problem, the Equality Advisory and Support Service can advise on rights under the Equality Act 2010.