Accessibility

Last updated 7 September 2026

Our commitment

Solar Strive is committed to making solarstrive.com accessible to people with disabilities, including people who use screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, screen magnification, voice control, or who need reduced motion. Accessibility is part of how the site is built, not a layer added afterwards.

The standard we work to

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 define three levels of conformance. Solar Strive aims for level AA. Our current status is partially conformant: parts of the site meet AA, and the exceptions we know about are listed below — including some that matter, which is why they are written out plainly rather than summarised away.

What we do

• a visible focus outline on every focusable element, set once for the whole site at zero specificity so no component can quietly remove it
• respect for the operating-system “reduce motion” setting: every CSS animation and transition on the site is neutralised when it is on
• colour contrast computed rather than guessed — the palette file carries the measured ratio of every colour against every ground it is used on, and four rules derived from them about which ink may sit where
• alternative text on meaningful images, and decorative ones — the logo when the wordmark is beside it, diagram ornament, emoji — hidden from assistive technology
• form errors announced as alerts rather than only shown, and a form that keeps what you typed when a submission fails
• a page language declared on every page, so a screen reader reads it in the right voice
• a map that falls back to written HTML — a heading, an explanation, and a count of what would have been shown — when its tile service is unavailable
• plain language, short sentences, and no time limits on reading or completing a form

Known limitations

We know about the following and are working on them:

• The map is drawn on a canvas. You can pan and zoom it with the keyboard, but its markers are painted rather than built from HTML, so they cannot be reached with a keyboard or read by a screen reader — and the places it shows are not written out anywhere else on the page. If you need what the map holds, email us and we will write it out for you.
• The savings calculator has three sliders. They can be moved with the arrow keys and they show a visible label, but the label is not attached to the slider in code, so a screen reader announces a number without saying what the number is. The results underneath recalculate as you move a slider, and nothing announces that they changed. One line of small print on that panel is below the contrast ratio we hold ourselves to.
• The calculator opens over the home page in a panel that is not marked up as a dialogue: focus is not moved into it, focus is not held inside it, and the Escape key does not close it. Its close button is labelled and does work.
• The field-work documentation form, which signed-in members use to record a business, has the same problems and more of them: its labels are not attached to its fields, its close button and its per-photo delete buttons are icons with no name, and its progress indicator marks which step you are on with colour alone.
• There is no skip link, and the home page has no main landmark, so somebody using a screen reader has to walk past the navigation to reach the content. The pages added on 7 September 2026 — this one, privacy, terms and the data-request form — do have one.
• Loading states and the banner that confirms a field-work submission appear silently, with nothing to announce them.
• Nobody has yet walked this site end to end with a screen reader. The list above comes from reading the code, so there are almost certainly barriers on this site that are not on the list. Tell us and it goes on it.

Tell us what is in your way

If you cannot access something on this site, or you need it in another format, email hq@solarstrive.com with the page address and what happened. A person reads that inbox and replies within five business days, and we treat an accessibility barrier as a bug to fix, not a request to file. If you are not satisfied with our answer, say so in your reply and it will be escalated to the site’s owner.

If the map or the calculator is the thing in your way, say so and we will answer the question you were trying to ask them — where the nearest placement is, or what the numbers come out at — in writing, by email.

Compatibility

The site is built to work with current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge on desktop and mobile, and with screen readers such as VoiceOver, NVDA and TalkBack. It relies on HTML, CSS, JavaScript and WAI-ARIA; a browser with JavaScript disabled can still read the written pages, though the map, the calculator and the forms will not run.

How we checked

This statement is based on our own evaluation: a line-by-line review of the code behind the pages named above, carried out on 7 September 2026. It has not yet been tested by a person using a screen reader — that is the last item in the list of limitations, and it is there because a statement that claimed testing we have not done would be the least trustworthy sentence on the page. We review this statement whenever the site changes substantially, and at least once a year.