Accessibility Statement

The Care Letter is committed to accessibility because the people our readers care for — aging parents, partners, grandparents — frequently have vision, motor, cognitive, or hearing challenges that make inaccessible sites unusable. We hold ourselves to a higher standard because our audience would expect it.

Our standard

The Care Letter targets WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance across the website and every newsletter issue. We don't claim full conformance at launch — see "Known issues being remediated" below. Where the cost of AAA-level compliance is small (reduced motion, semantic structure), we aim for AAA. Where a feature isn't yet built (e.g., audio alternatives for podcast content we don't yet publish), we'll address it before launch of that feature.

Specific commitments

• Keyboard-only navigation. Every interactive element is reachable and operable with a keyboard. A skip-to-content link bypasses navigation for screen reader and keyboard users.
• Screen reader compatibility. Pages use semantic HTML (headings, landmarks, lists). Decorative elements have aria-hidden. Forms have programmatically associated labels.
• Color contrast. Body text contrast meets or exceeds the 4.5:1 WCAG AA threshold. Headlines and large text meet 3:1. Form input borders meet the 3:1 non-text contrast threshold (WCAG 1.4.11).
• Resizable text. Pages scale cleanly to 200% zoom without horizontal scrolling or content loss.
• Reduced motion. We respect the prefers-reduced-motion system preference. Smooth scrolling, transitions, and any animations honor the user's setting.
• Touch target sizes. Interactive controls are at least 44×44 pixels per WCAG 2.5.5.
• Clear language. We deliberately avoid jargon, idioms that translate poorly, and "click here" link patterns. Every link's destination is clear from the link text alone.
• Standard primary sources. When we link out for primary sources, we link to government and well-established nonprofit publishers (CMS, CDC, KFF, AARP, NAELA, IRS, DOL) that themselves maintain accessibility standards.

Audit + remediation log

We run automated axe-core deep scans against every key route on production. The scan covers the full WCAG 2.0 / 2.1 / 2.2 A + AA ruleset plus the IBM/Deque best-practice ruleset (~95 distinct rules in total).

Most recent scan: 2026-06-10. Result: 0 violations across all 19 audited routes.

Scan history

| Date | Routes scanned | Result | |------|---------------|--------| | 2026-06-10 (15:13 UTC) | 19 | 0 critical / 0 serious / 0 moderate / 0 minor | | 2026-06-10 (15:07 UTC) | 19 | Identified 138 instances across 3 root causes — all fixed in commit 72145c8 and re-verified clean at 15:13 | | 2026-06-03 (manual audit) | All published surfaces | 4 WCAG AA gaps identified |

Fixes shipped 2026-06-10

• ✓ Site-wide footer text contrast — bumped text-ink/55 (4.33:1) to text-ink/60 (5.17:1). Footer renders on every page, so this resolved 95 site-wide serious violation instances.
• ✓ Guide and brand page main landmark — [slug]/page.tsx now wraps content in <main id="main-content"> instead of <article id="main-content">. Resolves the landmark-one-main + region axe rules.
• ✓ EmailCapture heading order — the inline subscribe CTA's headline element changed from <h3> to <h2> so the homepage no longer skips from <h1> straight to <h3>.

Fixes shipped 2026-06-05

• ✓ Body-text contrast — 12 subdued-text instances bumped from 4.34:1 to 5.17:1. Passes WCAG 2.1 AA-normal text (4.5:1).
• ✓ Skip-to-content focus — every id="main-content" target now has tabIndex={-1} so the skip link both scrolls AND moves keyboard focus.
• ✓ /directory/apply Website-field label — htmlFor pointer corrected.
• ✓ Input border contrast — bumped from 2.02:1 to 3.67:1 across all form inputs site-wide. Passes WCAG 1.4.11 non-text contrast (3:1).

Anything else we missed? See "Tell us" below — reader reports take priority over automated tests.

Newsletter accessibility

Beehiiv-delivered issues follow these editorial standards:

• Semantic structure in HTML emails (proper headings, lists, links)
• Sufficient color contrast in every issue (we don't override beehiiv's accessible defaults)
• Plain-text version generated alongside every HTML send
• Alt text on any image we include (almost all issues are text-first; image-heavy issues get extra alt-text review)
• "Click here" / "read more" replaced with descriptive link text
• Subject lines that work via screen-reader text-to-speech (no decorative Unicode, no emoji that screen readers vocalize awkwardly)

What we don't yet do

We're transparent about gaps:

• No formal third-party accessibility audit yet. We rely on automated testing (axe-core, Lighthouse CI) and informed self-review. Once subscriber count crosses 5,000 we'll commission a third-party WCAG audit.
• No published video content. When we add video, every piece will ship with captions and a transcript before publish.
• No audio version of issues. Modern screen readers handle our text well; we don't yet produce a dedicated audio version. Under consideration for the premium tier.
• English-only. Multilingual eldercare resources are an important gap in the broader landscape (Family Caregiver Alliance covers it well in 6 languages). Translation is a Year 2+ consideration.

How we test

• Automated (deep scan): npm run a11y:scan — a Playwright + axe-core 4.x scan against 19 representative production routes. Runs the full WCAG 2.0 / 2.1 / 2.2 A + AA ruleset plus best-practice rules. Exits nonzero if any critical or serious violations are found, so pre-deploy hooks can fail on regressions. Source: scripts/a11y-scan.ts.
• Automated (per-deploy): Lighthouse CI runs on every push to main. Targets: Accessibility score ≥ 95, no critical axe-core violations across the 22-URL audit list (configured for mobile preset).
• Manual: Quarterly review of every published page using VoiceOver (macOS) + keyboard-only navigation. The Tab key from the URL bar must reach every interactive element in a sensible order.
• User feedback: Reports from readers are treated as our most important signal. See "Tell us" below.

Tell us when something's broken

If a page, a newsletter issue, or a tool isn't working for you — for any accessibility reason — please tell us. We treat every report as high priority and aim to fix or respond within 5 business days.

• Email: accessibility@thecareletter.com (catch-all; routes to Jordan)
• Reply to any issue: any inbound reply on a newsletter issue reaches the editor directly

Include: what you were trying to do, what assistive technology you're using (screen reader name and version is the most helpful), and what happened. Screenshots help but aren't required.

Standards we reference

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 — W3C published standard
• Americans with Disabilities Act, Title III — U.S. Department of Justice
• Section 508 — U.S. federal accessibility standard
• ARIA Authoring Practices Guide — W3C reference patterns

This statement is a living document. Last updated 2026-06-25. We expect to update it whenever we ship a new feature with accessibility implications, and append to the audit-and-remediation log above on every scheduled or reader-reported scan.

The Care Letter publishes general educational information. It is not legal, medical, financial, or tax advice. Consult a qualified professional for guidance on your specific situation.