Our commitment
The Homeowner Guide is for every homeowner, including people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, magnification, voice control or other assistive technology, and people who simply prefer larger text or less motion. We aim for the site to be usable by as many people as possible, and we treat accessibility problems as bugs to fix.
Our standard
We aim to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. These guidelines, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance is a goal we work toward and check against as we add and update pages; we do not claim the site is perfect.
Accessibility features
The site is built with these features:
- Readable text: body text is set at 18px, with comfortable line spacing, and text can be resized with your browser’s zoom without losing content.
- High contrast in light and dark modes: colors are chosen to meet contrast requirements in both themes. You can choose light, dark or follow your system setting.
- Keyboard navigation: all links, menus, buttons and forms can be reached and used with a keyboard alone.
- Skip link: a “skip to content” link lets keyboard and screen reader users jump past the navigation.
- Visible focus: a clear focus indicator shows where you are on the page.
- Reduced motion: if your device is set to reduce motion, the site minimizes animations and transitions.
- Alternative text: informative images have text alternatives; decorative images are hidden from screen readers.
- Structured headings: each page uses a logical heading order, and longer pages include a table of contents.
- Language attributes: pages are marked as English, Spanish or Simplified Chinese, so screen readers use the correct pronunciation.
- Captions: we do not publish video yet. When we do, videos will have captions.
Known limitations
We are honest about where the site may fall short:
- Linked government documents: many of our guides link to PDFs and forms published by government agencies, county assessors and other organizations. We do not control those files, and some may not be fully accessible. If you cannot use a linked document, tell us; we will try to point you to an accessible version or summarize the relevant information.
- Older content: as we review articles, we check them against our accessibility standard. An older page may have an issue we have not yet found.
- Tables: some comparison tables can be harder to use on small screens. We try to keep them simple and readable.
Compatibility
The site is designed to work with current versions of major browsers and common assistive technologies. It uses standard HTML with semantic structure, so it should work with most screen readers. Very old browsers may not display everything as intended.
Report a problem
If you run into a barrier, or need information from the site in a different format, please tell us. Email [email protected] with “Accessibility” in the subject line, or use the contact form. It helps if you include:
- The page URL.
- What you were trying to do and what went wrong.
- The browser, device and any assistive technology you were using, if you are comfortable sharing it.
We aim to respond within 5 business days. If a fix will take longer, we will tell you what we are doing and, where we can, provide the information you need in another way in the meantime.
Ongoing work
Accessibility is part of how we build and review pages, not a one-time project. We check new templates and features for keyboard access, contrast and screen reader behavior before release, and we revisit this statement when the site changes.
Related pages
Read our privacy policy, cookie policy and terms of use, or learn about The Homeowner Guide.
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