Marcel Verstraete

How this site is built for access

Assistive technology is my job, so this website should practice what I preach.

Built for every way of pointing

The students I work with get around a screen in many ways: a finger, a mouse, a head pointer, eye gaze, a switch, or a keyboard. This site is built with all of them in mind.

  • Big targets

    Every button and menu link is at least 44 pixels wide and tall, so it’s easy to hit with a finger, a head pointer, or a mouse. Need them bigger? Turn on “Bigger buttons” in the Display panel, and they grow to at least 64 pixels, with more room between them.

  • Nothing opens on hover

    Menus open only when you choose them, never just because your pointer passed over them. A head pointer or eye gaze can move across the page freely.

  • One press does it

    Every control works with a single tap, click, or switch press. Nothing needs dragging, swiping, or two fingers.

  • Slide off to cancel

    Buttons act when you let go, not when you first press. If you land on the wrong one, slide off it before letting go and nothing happens.

  • No time limits

    Nothing here is timed. Take as long as you need.

  • A short path

    For keyboard and switch users, the whole home page is 14 stops from top to bottom, in the same order you read it.

  • Nothing covers your place

    The header stays at the top instead of following you down the page, so it never hides what you’ve selected.

See it for yourself

Switch these on to see this page the way a keyboard, a switch, or a screen reader finds it. They change only what you see here, and they switch off when you leave.

Tab stops Numbers each place the Tab key or a switch stops, in order.
Targets Outlines everything you can tap or click, at its full size.
Headings Labels each heading with its level, the outline a screen reader uses to jump around.

Choices you can see

  • Display preferences

    The “Display” button in the header lets you change the text size, switch between the light and dark theme, add breathing room between letters and lines, turn up the contrast, or make the buttons bigger. Your choices are saved on your device and stick as you move between pages.

  • A typeface made for reading

    Text is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible Next, a typeface from the Braille Institute that gives easily confused characters, like a capital I, a lowercase l, and the number 1, clearly different shapes.

  • A skip link

    If you navigate by keyboard, press Tab once on any page and a “Skip to main content” link appears, so you don’t have to step through the menu every time.

  • Visible focus

    As you tab through the page, whatever is selected gets a thick outline, so you always know where you are.

  • Underlined links

    Links in a paragraph are always underlined, not just colored, so they’re easy to pick out whether or not you see color the way I do.

Choices under the hood

  • Real structure

    Headings, landmarks, and lists are marked up semantically, so screen readers can navigate by section instead of reading top to bottom.

  • Everything works by keyboard

    Menus, buttons, and even the cats hiding in the footer can be reached and operated without a mouse.

  • Strong contrast that follows your settings

    Text contrast meets WCAG AA and most of it clears AAA. The site follows your device settings for dark mode, reduced motion, and higher contrast, and it stays readable in Windows High Contrast mode.

  • It works without JavaScript

    Every page reads fine with scripts turned off. The extras that need them, like the Display panel, stay hidden, so nothing is left half-working. There are no pop-ups, no autoplay, and nothing that blinks.

  • Nothing tracks you

    No cookies, no analytics, and nothing loaded from other websites, not even the fonts. The only thing stored on your device is your Display preferences, and only if you set them.

Found a barrier?

Accessibility is never finished. If anything here is hard for you to read, navigate, or operate, I genuinely want to know.

The same goes if you’d like anything here in another format, like large print or a phone call. The email starts with a few prompts, so there’s less to type.

Email me