LoonieCalc
Menu

Accessibility

Last updated

LoonieCalc is built to meet the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA. The site is a public-facing financial calculator utility, and we take accessibility seriously: financial information is only useful if every reader can reach it.

This page documents the standard we are building to, the specific practices in place, the limitations we know about today, and how to report an accessibility issue.

Standard and scope

Our accessibility target across every public page on looniecalc.ca is WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We treat AA as a floor, not a ceiling — for example, all calculator widgets are keyboard-operable, which goes beyond the WCAG 2.1 requirement on several criteria.

Where Canadian provincial accessibility law applies (the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 for Ontario residents and the Accessible British Columbia Act for BC), the WCAG 2.1 AA target is consistent with those frameworks' technical expectations.

Practices in place

  • Semantic HTML. Every page uses heading levels (h1 → h2 → h3) in a meaningful order, lists for list content, <nav> for navigation, <main> for page content, <article> for the principal reading region, and <label> elements programmatically associated with every form input.
  • Keyboard operability. Every interactive control on the site — calculator inputs, navigation menus, the contact form, link buttons in the hero — is reachable and operable using Tab / Shift+Tab / Enter / Space alone, with a visible focus indicator.
  • Colour contrast. Body text, headings, link text, and button labels meet the 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal text and 3:1 for large text required by WCAG 1.4.3. Hover and focus states maintain those ratios.
  • Resizing. Pages reflow to 320px CSS width without loss of content or function (WCAG 1.4.10), and remain readable up to 200% zoom in a desktop browser without horizontal scrolling (WCAG 1.4.4).
  • Alternative text. Decorative images use role="presentation"; informative images carry meaningful alt attributes. The hero image on the homepage is decorative.
  • Calculator output is text, not images. Every calculator renders its results as machine-readable text inside the document, never as an image of numbers. Screen readers announce calculator outputs the same way they announce any other page content.
  • Charts have textual equivalents. Where a calculator includes a visual chart (for example, the amortization curve on the mortgage payment calculator), the underlying numeric breakdown is also available in text form on the same page.

Known limitations

No public site of this scope is fully WCAG-conformant on the day it ships. We are honest about the gaps we are aware of:

  • Some calculator widgets have not yet been independently audited. The site as a whole has been authored to WCAG 2.1 AA criteria and self-tested with screen-reader software (NVDA on Windows; VoiceOver on macOS), but a formal third-party audit has not been commissioned. When one is, the result will be published at the bottom of this page.
  • The desktop dropdown navigation depends on JavaScript. The grouped header nav at desktop widths is a Base UI NavigationMenu primitive that requires JavaScript to reveal sub-menu items. The mobile burger menu is a no-JavaScript fallback that exposes the same destinations as a flat list, and the footer carries the full set of category and trust-page links — so nothing on the site is unreachable when JavaScript is disabled, but the desktop experience is degraded in that configuration.
  • Calculator widgets require JavaScript. The explanatory content on every calculator page (formula, assumptions, sources, FAQ) is server-rendered HTML and readable without JavaScript. The interactive calculation itself runs in a React component and does not function without JavaScript. We are tracking a server-side fallback for at least the highest-traffic calculators (mortgage payment, RRSP) as a separate accessibility improvement.

Alternative formats and accommodations

If you need information from this site in an alternative format — a calculation result described in an email rather than retrieved from the calculator widget, an explanation of a formula in plain language outside the page's structure, or a printable text-only version of a methodology page — email hello@looniecalc.ca with what you need. We aim to respond within two business days. There is no charge for accessibility accommodations.

Reporting an accessibility issue

If something on this site is harder to use than it should be, please tell us. Email hello@looniecalc.ca with:

  • The page URL.
  • What you were trying to do.
  • What happened (or did not happen) instead.
  • The browser and assistive technology you were using, if known.

We treat accessibility reports with the same priority as calculation errors: triage within two business days, fix within seven days where the change is technically practicable, and a response either way. Our broader correction protocol is documented at editorial integrity.