Accessibility statement for the Atlas theme for OJS

Statement

Accessibility checklist

What the theme does, feature by feature. Each line is described in What we have done, and the testing lines in How we tested.

Statement

Commitment

We want journals that use Atlas to be usable by everyone, including people who navigate with a keyboard, use a screen reader, magnify the page, use a high-contrast mode, or prefer reduced motion. We aim for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA, and we also meet the additional WCAG 2.2 level AA criteria.

Statement

Conformance status

In our tests, Atlas 1.0+ (for OJS 3.3) and Atlas 2.0+ (for OJS 3.5) are fully conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA and with the WCAG 2.2 level AA additions for the theme's own pages and components: we know of no remaining failures. “Fully conformant” here covers what the theme itself draws, on the pages listed under How we tested. It does not cover content added by each journal or pages and page blocks provided by other OJS plugins; see Scope. The OJS administration and editorial screens are outside the scope of this statement (the theme's own settings screen is included).

Details

What we have done

⇥ Keyboard

• A “Skip to content” link as the first keyboard stop, landing on the main content region; “Back to top” also moves keyboard focus back to the main content.
• A focus indicator on every interactive element that does not depend on the colours chosen in the settings: a dark outline inside a light halo (light outline, dark halo in dark mode). The two are far enough apart that one of them stands out by at least 3:1 against any background, including cover images and dark blocks.
• Keyboard focus is managed in the mobile menu, the command palette, the citation dialog and the signed-in user menu: it moves into them when they open, Escape closes them, and focus returns to the control that opened them.
• Submenus of the main navigation follow the disclosure pattern: Enter or Space (or the pointer) opens them, Escape closes them, and a closed submenu's links are out of the tab order. The archive view and citation format tabs work with the arrow keys.
• The single-key shortcut “/” for the command palette is off unless the journal turns it on. Switching between light and dark mode uses Alt+Shift+D (Option+Shift+D on a Mac), which no major browser uses; Ctrl+D stays the browser's bookmark shortcut.
• Scrolling that follows keyboard focus is always instant, and an element that receives keyboard focus is brought fully into view, clear of the sticky header.

♪ Screen readers

• Menus, tabs, toggles and the slider tell assistive technology their state (expanded, selected, pressed, current slide), and the state announced when focus arrives is the state on screen. When a reader changes the slide, the new slide is announced; while the slider turns on its own, it stays silent.
• While the citation dialog or the command palette is open, the rest of the page is inert, so a screen reader's own reading cursor (swipes on a phone, browse mode on a computer) also stays in the dialog.
• Every page has one main heading, and heading levels do not skip.
• All content sits inside named page regions: the utility bar (language, login), the header, the site navigation, the main content and the footer; the article's table of contents has a name.
• Status messages (for example “Link copied”, or the number of articles after filtering) are announced to assistive technology.
• Login and registration fields declare their purpose for autofill. A failed login is announced, linked to the fields and receives focus, and the reason OJS gives (for example a disabled account) is shown. Every search field has a label.
• Decorative icons are hidden from assistive technology. An image whose name is written right next to it (a logo beside the journal name, index logos with their names, editorial board photos) has an empty alternative text so the name is not read twice; issue covers and journal thumbnails use the alternative text entered in OJS.

◑ Colour & contrast

• Colours chosen in the theme settings are adjusted automatically where they are used as text (at least 4.5:1) or behind text, separately for light and dark mode and for each of the three surface tones. Under each colour field the settings screen reports the shades the theme derives and their contrast, and flags a colour that stands out little from the page. Text over cover images gets an automatic overlay where needed.
• Links inside running text (references, announcements, page content, the footer's free-text field) are underlined, so they are not told apart by colour alone.
• In Windows High Contrast (forced colours) mode, selected and current states (language, filters, views, citation style, the current slide) use the system highlight colours, and controls drawn only with colour (the menu button, slider dots) stay visible.

❚❚ Motion

• Moving content can be stopped: the homepage slider, the indexing strip and the issue timeline each have a pause button placed before their items; the slider stops when a keyboard user moves into it, and a focused item in the strips stops them and is scrolled into view.
• With the operating system's reduced-motion setting, the slider, the strips, decorative cover animations, the status dot and the command palette's opening stay still, and the page does not scroll smoothly.

Aa Language

• Correct page language and text direction for every interface language, including right-to-left Arabic. Titles, summaries, the journal's name and the journal's own texts (About, submission guidelines) that OJS shows in another language, because a translation is missing, are marked with that language, so screen readers switch voice for them.
• Interface text, including the names of icon-only buttons, in six languages (English, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, Ukrainian, European Portuguese).

▣ Layout & reading

• Layout reflows to a 320-pixel-wide screen without horizontal scrolling or cut-off text, long journal names included, and nothing is lost when line, letter, word and paragraph spacing are increased.
• Icon links and small controls meet the WCAG 2.2 minimum target size; the ORCID and ROR icons next to author names have 24 × 24-pixel targets.
• Fonts can be served from the journal's own server, with no third-party requests.

Details

How we tested

Every method below was run on OJS 3.3 and OJS 3.5.

Details

Scope

Summary

Checklist summary

The accessibility checklist in ten lines.

Contact

Feedback

If you meet a barrier, please tell us: [email protected]. We aim to respond within 5 business days.