Accessibility Statement

Last updated: May 23, 2026

Last updated: 23 May 2026 · Last reviewed: 23 May 2026 · Audit: 19 May 2026

Our commitment

Radio Nations is built so anyone can find and listen to a radio station, regardless of how they use the web. We design for:

  • Visitors who navigate with a keyboard
  • Visitors who can’t use a mouse
  • Screen-reader users (VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS, TalkBack)
  • Visitors with low vision who enlarge text or change colors
  • Visitors who turn off animations to reduce motion
  • Visitors using high-contrast or dark modes
  • Visitors on slow connections or older devices

If something doesn’t work for you, please tell us — see “Reporting issues” below.

📐 Standard we follow

We target Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA as our baseline. We also track WCAG 2.2 AAA where it’s reasonable to achieve. This is an evolving target; we don’t claim perfect compliance, but we work toward it continuously.

What we’ve implemented

⌨️ Keyboard navigation

  • Every interactive element is reachable with Tab and operable with Enter / Space
  • Focus indicators are visible on all interactive controls
  • Esc closes overlays and dialogs
  • Skip-to-content link is the first focusable element

🔊 Screen-reader support

  • Semantic HTML (<main>, <nav>, <article>, <section> landmarks)
  • ARIA labels on icon-only buttons
  • Live regions announce player state changes
  • Tested with VoiceOver (macOS, iOS) and NVDA (Windows)
  • JAWS (Windows) and TalkBack (Android) testing is in progress

👁️ Visual design

  • Color contrast meets WCAG AA (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and UI controls)
  • Text scales to 200% without breaking layout
  • Information is never conveyed by color alone
  • Animations respect the prefers-reduced-motion media query
  • Built-in dark mode that follows prefers-color-scheme

📱 Mobile and touch

  • Touch targets are at least 44×44 CSS pixels
  • Sticky player remains accessible without scrolling
  • All gestures have keyboard equivalents

📝 Forms

  • Every input has a visible label
  • Error messages linked to inputs via aria-describedby
  • Focus moves to the first error on submit
  • Required fields marked both visually and with aria-required

🎵 Audio player

  • Single play / pause button with contextual aria-label
  • Native <input type="range"> for volume (screen readers + keyboard work out of the box)
  • Sleep timer uses a button group, not a custom widget
  • Errors announced via ARIA live region
  • No autoplay; user always initiates playback

⚠️ Known limitations

We’re transparent about what isn’t there yet:

  • Some flag emoji are announced verbosely by screen readers — we wrap them in aria-hidden where decorative and supply an aria-label where informative, but coverage isn’t 100%
  • The Web Audio canvas visualizer can briefly steal focus in some Firefox versions
  • Any PDFs we publish would need accessible alternatives — we don’t currently publish any
  • Third-party station logos and descriptions come from external sources; we have limited control over their text contrast or alt copy
  • User-submitted reviews aren’t pre-screened for plain-language compliance

If any of these limitations specifically affects you, email [email protected] — we’ll provide an alternative.

Reporting an accessibility issue

Email [email protected] with subject “Accessibility” and include:

  1. The page URL where you encountered the issue
  2. What you expected to happen
  3. What actually happened
  4. Your OS, browser, and assistive technology (e.g. “macOS 14, Safari 17, VoiceOver”)

Response targets:

  • Initial reply within 5 business days
  • Fix or alternative provided within 30 days where feasible; we’ll keep you posted otherwise

For urgent help finding a station, you can also use the same email and we’ll respond with the listing details directly.

Legal framework

We follow these accessibility standards voluntarily — Radio Nations is not a public body — but we treat them as benchmarks:

  • EU Web Accessibility Directive 2016/2102 (for public-sector reference)
  • European Accessibility Act (EAA), applicable from 28 June 2025 — applies to private-sector e-commerce and information society services. We have updated the site to align with EAA requirements.
  • EN 301 549 v3 (European harmonised accessibility standard)
  • UK Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018
  • US Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
  • US Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III (as interpreted by courts)
  • Canadian Accessible Canada Act (ACA) + Ontario AODA

Statement preparation

This statement was prepared on the basis of an internal self-evaluation using the W3C Accessibility Statement Generator as a template, followed by manual testing with the assistive technologies listed above.

Maintenance

This statement is reviewed every six months and after every major redesign. The next scheduled review is 23 November 2026.

✉️ Contact

[email protected]

Use subject “Accessibility” for accessibility-specific issues; we route them on receipt.