PUBlish

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Accessibility

Last updated: 15 May 2026

1. Our commitment

Publish Ltd wants PUBlish to be usable by everyone — including readers who navigate with a keyboard, screen-reader users, people with low vision, people with motor or cognitive differences, and anyone who turns off JavaScript or browses on a slow connection. We target Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA across the public reader surface, the writer’s desk, and the Shop.

2. What this statement covers

This statement covers all PUBlish surfaces served from pub-lish.com: article reading, profile pages, the Verified Storefront feature ( Sell on PUBlish), the writer’s desk and editor, and every legal and policy page. It does NOT cover third-party checkout (Stripe handles its own accessibility statement at stripe.com/legal/accessibility).

3. What we’ve built in

  • Keyboard navigation. Every interactive element is reachable with Tab. The product modal, celebration overlays, and bell popover trap focus while open and restore it on close.
  • Semantic markup. Pieces render as real<article>, <h1>,<h2> with no header-as-text fakery. Headings flow in a meaningful order on every page.
  • Visible focus. Buttons and links keep a visible focus ring. We never set outline: none without a replacement.
  • Contrast. The default light theme and the dark theme both meet 4.5:1 against background for body text; the gold-deep accent meets 4.5:1 only on the paper background, never against busy images.
  • Alt text. Every functional image carries alt text; decorative ones are aria-hidden="true" so screen readers skip them.
  • Reduced-motion respect. We honour the user’s prefers-reduced-motion system setting and disable scroll animations, sliding modals, and pulse effects when set.
  • Forms. Every input has a programmatic label. Errors render as text near the field, not as colour change alone.

4. Known gaps

We’re honest about where we’re not yet at AA. As of 15 May 2026:

  • The product image gallery in the Shop modal moves between images on prev/next button taps but does not yet announce the new image to screen readers. We’re adding an aria-live region that names the current image (“Image 2 of 4”) — tracked for the next iteration.
  • A handful of editor toolbar buttons (image upload, code block) use icon-only labels with title attributes; we’re moving them to explicit visible labels under the icon so the affordance works without hover.
  • The dark theme’s gold accent against dark ink currently meets AA Large but not AA Normal for the smallest 11px microcopy (“Last updated” line). We’re lifting the contrast in the next theme pass.

Found something we didn’t list? Tell us — we treat accessibility bug reports the same as security reports and respond within 5 working days.

5. How to report a barrier

Email hello@pub-lish.com with:

  • The page URL where you hit the barrier
  • What you were trying to do
  • What didn’t work (in your own words)
  • Your assistive technology (e.g. “VoiceOver on Safari”, “NVDA on Firefox”, “keyboard only, no mouse”) if relevant

We acknowledge every report within 2 working days and ship a fix or a written plan within 10. If we can’t fix something quickly, we’ll tell you why and what the workaround is.

6. Enforcement and your rights (EU)

Under the European Accessibility Act and its national transpositions, you have the right to escalate unresolved accessibility complaints to the enforcement authority in your EU member state. Most member states publish a list of accredited bodies on their national consumer-affairs portal. We comply with their requests in writing within 30 days.

7. Methodology

We test against WCAG 2.2 AA using a mix of automated tools (axe-core, Lighthouse), keyboard-only manual passes on every new feature, and screen-reader smoke tests on VoiceOver and NVDA before any release that touches a user flow. We do not yet commission third-party audits; that’s on the roadmap for the next year.

8. Changes

We update this page whenever the conformance level, the known-gaps list, or the reporting routes change. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page changes whenever the substance does.