Accessibility
Accessibility statement
What we have checked, what is still to be fixed, and how to tell us about it. We would rather publish an incomplete but accurate statement than an unverifiable claim of compliance.
Compliance status
Partially compliant
The site meets WCAG 2.2 level AA on the items actually audited, listed below. Pages that have not been reviewed yet are not declared compliant — they are declared unaudited. No external audit has been carried out to date, and no certification is claimed.
Target level
We are working towards WCAG 2.2 level AA across all public pages. The criteria introduced by version 2.2 are taken into account, in particular 2.4.11 and 2.4.13 (keyboard focus appearance and non-obscuring) and 2.5.8 (target size).
Last reviewed :
Audited scope
The audit is carried out page by page, not globally. Here is the exact state at the last review.
Audited and fixed
- The full colour foundation: every text/background pair in both light and dark themes is verified by calculation, not by eye.
- The chrome shared by every page: header, footer, skip link, keyboard focus ring.
- The home page, including its introduction block.
- This page, the frequently asked questions, the 404 error page and the Diaspora Network page.
- The Service status and Maintenance pages, checked at 375 px and 1280 px in both light and dark themes.
- The unavailability page shown when the site stops responding: it is written in both French and English, has no external dependency, and its keyboard journey has been checked.
- The Transparency and Security pages, checked at 375 px and 1280 px in both light and dark themes.
- The ten institutional and legal documents (legal notice, policies, articles of association, charters), which share a single display template: heading hierarchy, table headers, document language and keyboard scrolling of tables.
- The contact form: labels, error messages and keyboard journey — except for the colour of the error messages, still open (see below).
- The Impact, Member area, Investment portal and Campaign spending pages, checked at 320 px, 375 px and 1280 px, in light theme, dark theme and with no declared preference.
- The Goal €1,000,000 page — the donation page — and its donation form, checked at 320 px, 375 px and 1280 px, in light theme, dark theme and with no declared preference.
- The Institutions, NGOs and donors page and the Companies and brands page, together with the partnership form they share, checked at the same three widths and in the same three themes.
- The Expert pool, Projects seeking funding and News pages — including pages 2 to 6 of the article list and the single-article page — checked at the same three widths and in the same three themes. These three pages show live data: on the day of the review the first two were legitimately empty, so only their empty-state layout could be checked.
- The Job offers, Expert hub, Mission calls, Become an expert, Governance and Events pages, checked at the same three widths and in the same three themes, in both French and English. The Job offers and Events pages show live data: on the day of the review the platform published no offer and no event, so only their empty-state layout could be checked. An individual expert profile page could not be checked as rendered: the directory holds no published profile, so that page cannot be displayed for anyone today.
- The Diaspora Fund, Invest in Cameroon, Trust and safety and Our Projects pages, checked at 320 px, 375 px and 1280 px, with light and dark themes measured separately. The Trust and safety page shows live data: on the day of the review no case had gone through escrow, so only its zero-state layout could be checked — the page now says so itself.
- The Business & partnerships hub and its Financial institutions & fintech, Media & content creators and Individuals & freelancers pages, the Resource Center page, the Donor area and its printable receipt, checked at 320 px, 375 px and 1280 px, with light and dark themes measured separately. The Donor area sign-in form was unreadable in dark theme (near-black text on a near-black background): fixed, along with its field border, which was below the non-text threshold. The printable receipt could not be checked with a real donation — it requires a valid donor session; its « receipt not found » branch, which carried no page heading at all, was.
Not audited yet
- The other public pages, being reviewed progressively in order of traffic.
- The member area, which is a separate application with its own tracking.
- Downloadable documents (governance PDFs, reports): their accessibility has not been assessed.
- Embedded third-party content (maps, video players, analytics scripts), which we do not control.
Method
Checks are automated where automation proves something, and manual where it does not.
- Contrast: a script reads the colours at source and computes the real WCAG ratio of every declared pair, including semi-transparent colours composited over their background. A pair below its threshold fails the check.
- Keyboard navigation: the page is actually tabbed through, and the focus ring is observed on every reachable element.
- Structure: page landmarks, heading hierarchy and text alternatives are checked.
- Display: rendering verified for real at 320 px, 375 px and 1280 px wide, not estimated.
- Target size: measured in the browser, applying the actual exceptions of criterion 2.5.8 — a target smaller than 24 px is still conformant if it is sufficiently spaced from its neighbours or inline within a sentence. Counting without those exceptions would raise a false alarm and hide the real failures.
Known issues
This list is maintained from the internal tracking of the project. It includes issues already fixed, so the change can be verified, and issues still open, so that nobody discovers them on our behalf.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum)
Ten legal links too tightly packed at the foot of the page
The last line of the footer — accessibility, legal notice, policies, terms of use, service status — lined up ten links 16 px tall whose neighbours were only 20 px apart centre to centre, below the 24 px required. That footer is rendered on every page of the site, so the failure was too. Each link was given a taller click area, bringing the gap between neighbours to 32 px. Measured again after the fix on five pages: no failing target left.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
Broken heading hierarchy on the News section
An article page rendered two level-1 headings: the one in the banner, and the one each of the forty-eight published articles opens with. The body's heading levels have been shifted down by one, without changing the text itself. On the article list, card titles were level 3: from the second page onwards, where the featured article is not rendered, the page jumped straight from level 1 to level 3. Those titles are now level 2, like the featured article they are peers of. Re-checked in a browser on the first and the last page of the list.
- OpenWCAG 2.2 · 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
Flag green used as a text colour, in dark theme
The price of a listing on the investment portal, the link to a spending receipt, on the donation page both the section eyebrows and the link to the spending detail, and the “Focus” eyebrow of the Institutions page, are painted in the flag green. In dark theme they measure between 2.93:1 and 3.41:1 against a 4.5:1 threshold. On the donation page, the “in progress” badge of a milestone uses the flag red and measures 3.18:1. On the News page, the two section badges set the flag green and the flag red on a background of the same colour at 10 %; on an article page, the badge dating the facts does the same with the red. These are exactly the same pairs as the “Project” badge of the investment portal and the “In person” badge of the Events page, found on 28/08: the same defect, on two more pages. Measured in a browser on the pages as actually served, they range from 2.82:1 to 3.27:1. The hover colour of article titles and of an article's back link is that same green, at 3.09:1 and 3.41:1 — a hover state is not exempt from the criterion. The following batch found the same pairs on four more surfaces, without creating any new ones: the category label of a document in the Resource Center, the « View receipt » link in the Donor area table, the back link of a receipt that cannot be found, and the « Business » back link of the five child pages of the Business & partnerships hub — that one on hover only. This is the same pending decision as the red of error messages below: these three colours are the national emblem's, and deciding to replace them in an interface role is not a technical call. The automated check measures all twelve pairs on every run and refuses to let them disappear quietly.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 3.2.5 Change on Request
Links opening a new tab without saying so
The footer, the home page, the member area and the investment portal opened links in a new tab without announcing it: around twenty links in total, including the footer ones present on every page. Screen readers now read that notice. On the investment portal and the spending page, labels repeated identically from row to row ("View listing", "View proof") also carry the name of the item concerned, so they remain distinguishable out of context (criterion 2.4.4).
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide
Auto-playing carousel on the home page
The home page opened on five panels rotating on their own every seven seconds, with no stop control; the only way to interrupt it was a mouse hover, unavailable to keyboard and touch users. The carousel has been replaced with a single static block.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 2.4.13 Focus Appearance
Keyboard focus ring suppressed on buttons and in the header
Buttons and the main navigation removed the browser focus ring and replaced it with a local outline that was sometimes invisible. A single ring, with width and offset defined once, now applies to every keyboard-reachable element.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast
Focus ring unreadable on deep green surfaces
On large deep green areas, the default green focus ring did not stand out from the background. Those surfaces now switch the ring to the brand gold, which is far more contrasted.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
Alert colour and field borders below the threshold
The alert colour in dark theme and the input field border in both themes fell below the required threshold. The values were fixed at source, in the colour reference shared with the member area.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks
No skip link
There was no way to skip the main menu repeated at the top of every page. A skip link to the main content is now the first keyboard-reachable element.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 2.4.13 Focus Appearance
Focus ring redefined locally in forms
Around twenty files, mostly forms already in production, suppressed the shared ring and drew their own outline — sometimes none at all. The membership form, both project submission forms, the partnership form, the donation module, the donor area, the back-office sign-in and the shared components (checkbox, radio button, badge, theme toggle, main menu) have been reworked. The shared ring now applies to them, and its contrast has been measured in both themes on each of those screens.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast
Focus ring too pale on a button shared with the member area
A button component shared with the member area drew its focus ring at 50% opacity: measured, that ring reached only 2.27:1 in light theme and 2.29:1 in dark theme, below the 3:1 threshold. It appears wherever a list is empty, for instance on the events page. The opacity has been removed: the same ring, re-measured with the keyboard against the real backgrounds of that page, now reaches 6.43:1 in light theme and 5.62:1 in dark theme.
- FixedWCAG 2.2 · 2.1.1 Keyboard
Legal document tables could not be scrolled with the keyboard
The tables inside the legal documents (cookie list, data categories, retention periods) run wider than a phone screen and scroll horizontally. Their container was not reachable with the keyboard: measured at 375 px, the last columns were out of reach without a mouse. That container is now a keyboard-reachable region, announced by the title of the article the table belongs to.
- OpenWCAG 2.2 · 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
Form error messages under-contrasted in dark theme
Form error messages are written in the red of the national emblem. Measured, that red reaches 5.63:1 on the light background — compliant — but only 3.30:1 on the dark background, below the 4.5:1 required for text. Fixing it depends on an ongoing decision about the role of the three emblem colours in the interface; meanwhile error messages remain readable in light theme and are also repeated in a summary at the top of the form.
- OpenWCAG 2.2 · 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
Form field hint text too low in contrast, in both themes
The grey text shown inside an empty field to indicate the expected format is faded to 60% of its colour. Measured, it reaches 2.76:1 on the light background and 3.71:1 on the dark one, below the 4.5:1 threshold in both cases. It affects the contact, membership and project submission forms. This text is never the only indication: every field carries a visible label above it, and that label is fully contrasted. The mechanical fix would give the hint text the exact colour of the entered text, making the two indistinguishable: it requires a decision, and we would rather publish the issue than hide it.
- OpenScope
Most public pages have not been reviewed yet
Pages not listed in the audited scope do benefit from the shared fixes (focus ring, colours, skip link) but have not been checked page by page. They may contain issues we have not yet observed.
- OpenScope
Downloadable documents not assessed
Governance documents and reports offered for download have not been assessed. If one of them is inaccessible to you, write to us and we will provide its content in a usable format.
Remediation plan
Fixes are handled in batches, from the most blocking to the least. Each batch ends with a real verification, not an estimate.
Delivered
Priority public pages: accessibility, about, communities, contact, frequently asked questions, 404 error page.
Delivered
Reworking production forms one by one: local focus rings removed and keyboard-checked, in both themes, on every screen reworked.
Current batch
Fixing, in the component library shared with the member area, the too-pale focus ring of the shared button.
Then
Reviewing the remaining pages in order of traffic, each reviewed page adding its own colour pairs to the automated check.
To be scheduled
Assessment of downloadable documents, then an audit by an independent third party across the whole public scope.
No date is announced here until it has been agreed by the steering committee. We would rather promise nothing than announce a deadline we would not meet.
Improvement history
Each line corresponds to a change actually delivered.
Impact, Member area, Investment portal and Campaign spending pages reviewed. Target size fixed in the footer, hence on every page of the site; links opening a new tab are now announced.
Transparency and Security pages published and checked. Institutional and legal documents reviewed: their tables are now reachable with the keyboard.
Local focus rings removed from production forms and shared components; ring contrast measured in both themes on every screen reworked.
Publication of this statement. Skip link to the main content added.
Home page auto-playing carousel replaced with a static block.
Keyboard focus ring unified across the site and made readable on deep green surfaces.
Failing contrasts in the colour foundation fixed, and automated contrast checking put in place.
Report a barrier
If a page, a feature or a document is inaccessible to you, tell us. Where possible, describe the page concerned, what you were trying to do, and the device or assistive technology you use: that is what allows us to reproduce the problem.
We acknowledge every report and tell you what action was taken. If our answer does not satisfy you, you can ask for the report to be escalated to the association's executive secretariat.