Accessibility

The commitment

IGW aims to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at Level AA across this site, and to keep meeting it as the site changes. That target applies to every public page, not to a subset of them.

How it is checked

Accessibility review combines rendered-page checks, keyboard testing and inspection of the code behind interactive tools. Checks include:

• Text contrast, composited against the background actually painted behind the text rather than against the first opaque ancestor.

• The size of interactive targets, with touch emulated so that the rules meant for a phone are the ones being tested.

• Horizontal overflow, heading order, and whether a page has exactly one first-level heading.

• Whether anything focusable is hidden from assistive technology, and whether a section's visible state contradicts what it records about itself.

These checks help identify defects as the site changes. They do not replace testing with assistive technology or an independent accessibility review.

Known exceptions

IGW does not claim full WCAG 2.2 AA conformance for the whole site. It claims the target, the measurement, and this list of what is not yet met.

The interactive Earth is a canvas

A rendered canvas cannot be read by a screen reader. Where the globe carries information, such as launch sites, orbital tracks and airspace restrictions, that information is also published as text on the same page. The goal is that nothing is available only inside the globe. If you find something that is, it is a defect, and reporting it will get it fixed.

Automated testing has limits

The audit measures contrast, size, structure and state. It cannot judge whether a description is useful, whether a reading order makes sense, or whether someone using a screen reader can actually finish a task. IGW has not yet commissioned an independent audit or testing with people who use assistive technology, and does not claim conformance that would need those methods to prove.

Live data states

Several pages use external data. If a source does not provide usable data, the affected area remains empty. Available content and controls remain accessible.

Third-party embeds

Where the site embeds something another company built, such as a video player, that embed carries its own accessibility behaviour and IGW does not control it.

Telling us about a barrier

Use the contact page. Say which page you were on, what you were trying to do, what happened, and what you were using: browser, operating system, and any assistive technology and its version. That last part is what makes a report reproducible, and a reproducible report gets fixed.

Who answers, and how quickly

Accessibility reports go to the person responsible for the site rather than to a general inbox nobody owns. IGW aims to acknowledge a report within five business days and to say what it intends to do, including, when that is the answer, that it will not be fixed and why. Where a fix will take time, IGW will offer the information another way in the meantime.

If IGW's answer does not resolve it, you can raise the matter with the authority responsible for accessibility complaints where you live.