Accessibility Statement
Effective Date: April 6, 2026
Standard: WCAG 2.1 Level AA
Prepared by: Web Team, Organic Reactions, Inc.
Our Commitment
Organic Reactions, Inc. is committed to ensuring that organicreactions.org is accessible to the broadest possible audience, including individuals with disabilities. We recognize our site as a professional and educational resource for the synthetic organic chemistry community, and we take seriously our responsibility to make it usable by authors, editors, students, faculty, and institutional visitors regardless of ability or assistive technology.
We are actively working to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Current Compliance Status
We completed a systematic accessibility audit and remediation of the site’s theme, templates, and interactive components in April 2026, alongside a full theme rebuild on Bootstrap 5. The following criteria have been specifically addressed:
| WCAG Criterion | What We Fixed |
|---|---|
| 1.1.1 Non-text Content | All theme-generated images now carry descriptive alt attributes. Banner background images and home slider photographs are exposed to screen readers via role="img" with an aria-label drawn from the media library or page title. Decorative section background images are correctly hidden from assistive technology. |
| 1.3.1 Info and Relationships | Page structure uses semantic HTML5 landmarks (<main>, <nav>, <header>, <footer>, <section>, <article>). Section titles use <h2> in proper outline order. Tables on the Published Chapters listing use proper <th scope> markup. |
| 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) | Body text is dark navy (#151143) on white, well above the 4.5:1 minimum. CTA tile icons were darkened from medium gray to a stronger gray to exceed the contrast requirement. Sidebar separator borders were corrected from a near-white tint to a perceptible slate. Footer social hover states use solid white instead of reduced-opacity white. Slider captions display over a semi-transparent dark overlay, ensuring white caption text meets contrast over any background photograph. |
| 1.4.4 Resize Text | Body and slider caption font sizes are expressed in rem units, allowing full browser text-size scaling without loss of content or function. |
| 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast | Interactive UI components (buttons, form inputs) meet the 3:1 contrast requirement for their boundaries and focus indicators. |
| 2.1.1 Keyboard | All interactive elements — navigation, search, modal dialogs, the home page carousel, and form controls — are operable by keyboard. Home page CTA hexagons reveal their description text on both :hover and :focus, so keyboard-only users see the same context as mouse users. |
| 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide | The home page slideshow includes a persistent pause/play button. The carousel automatically pauses when any element within it receives keyboard focus, and resumes when focus leaves — unless the user has manually paused, in which case the manual state is preserved. |
| 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks | A “Skip to main content” link is the first focusable element on every page. |
| 2.4.4 Link Purpose | Search-result “Read more” links carry the article title in their visible text, not only as an aria-label. News and chapter title links are underlined by default to make their purpose obvious. |
| 2.4.6 Headings and Labels | All form fields carry visible labels. Page and section headings describe the content they introduce. |
| 2.4.7 Focus Visible | All focusable elements display a visible focus indicator. The site does not suppress browser default outlines. |
| 3.1.1 Language of Page | The lang attribute is set on the <html> element for every page. |
| 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value | All icon-only controls (search, social links, slider pause) carry accessible labels. Modal dialogs use Bootstrap 5’s built-in ARIA modal pattern with dynamic labeling. |
Known Limitations and Ongoing Work
We are candid that full WCAG 2.1 AA conformance is an ongoing commitment, not a one-time certification. The following areas remain under active review:
- Legacy page content. Some older posts and pages created in the visual editor may contain images uploaded without alt text, tables used for layout, or low-contrast styled text. We are auditing this content incrementally.
- Published chapter PDFs. Linked chapter manuscripts, supporting information files, and historical volumes hosted at Wiley may not individually meet PDF/UA standards. Authors submitting materials are encouraged to use the accessibility checking tools built into Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office before uploading.
- Embedded video content. Videos hosted on YouTube and Vimeo and embedded on the site depend on those platforms for captioning. We encourage caption review for any embedded conference or educational video.
- Navigation plugin. Primary navigation is managed by Max Mega Menu Pro. The vendor implements ARIA roles, focus management, and Tab/Enter/Escape/Left/Right arrow keys at the top level. We have added a small in-theme JavaScript shim to provide W3C-conformant Down/Up arrow handling on desktop dropdowns, since the vendor does not yet implement this; the issue has been reported upstream.
For Universities and Institutional Partners
If your institution requires a formal VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) or a written accessibility accommodation confirmation letter for procurement or course adoption purposes, please contact us directly. We are willing to work with disability services offices and IT accessibility coordinators to support your compliance review process.
Feedback and Assistance
If you encounter any barrier to accessing content on this site, or if you require content in an alternative format, please contact:
Organic Reactions, Inc.
Email: [email protected]
Web: organicreactions.org/contact
We aim to respond to accessibility inquiries within 5 business days and to resolve or provide an accommodation for substantive barriers within 10 business days.
Technical Approach
This site is built on WordPress using the orgreact26 theme — a custom Bootstrap 5 theme with no build toolchain. All external libraries are loaded via CDN with Subresource Integrity (SRI) hashes. There is no custom JavaScript framework dependency. Accessibility testing has been performed using:
- Manual keyboard navigation review
- Screen reader testing (NVDA/Firefox, VoiceOver/Safari)
- Automated scanning with browser developer tools and axe DevTools
- W3C Markup Validation
This statement reflects the state of the site as of April 2026 and will be reviewed and updated at least annually, or following any major redesign.