Accessibility
Effective · Islamic Center of Longmont
In short
We build this site to WCAG 2.2 Level AA and test it automatically on every change: colour contrast, keyboard use, screen-reader structure, light and dark, phone and desktop.
We have not had an independent audit yet, and automated testing cannot catch everything. If something here is hard to use, tell us and we will fix it.
This summary is for orientation. The sections below are the operative text.
What we are aiming at
Our target is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA. That is the standard referenced by the Americans with Disabilities Act guidance and by Section 508, and it is the one we test against.
A masjid should be usable by everyone who wants to pray in it, and its website is the front door. Prayer times in particular must work for someone using a screen reader, someone on a very old phone, and someone who has turned JavaScript off.
What we have done
- Colour contrast is checked by machine, not by eye. Every foreground/background pair the site uses is verified, in both light and dark appearance, against the 4.5:1 requirement for text and 3:1 for interactive borders. The build fails if any pair drops below.
- Automated auditing on every change. We run axe-core against WCAG 2.2 AA across every public page, including the Qur’an reader and its search, in both appearances and at both phone and desktop widths.
- The prayer times work without JavaScript. Today’s times and the Jumu’ah time are in the HTML itself, so they render on a slow connection or a restricted browser. The one exception is the date line: it is drawn on your device from your own clock, so a page cached before midnight can never show yesterday’s date, and without JavaScript it is left blank rather than shown wrong. Both are checked automatically.
- Keyboard use. Every control is reachable by keyboard, focus is always visible and never removed, and a “skip to main content” link is the first thing you reach.
- Structure for screen readers. Landmarks, one heading level per page section, real headings rather than styled text, and labelled form controls.
- Arabic is marked as Arabic. Qur’anic and other Arabic text carries the correct language and direction, so a screen reader pronounces it rather than spelling it out in English.
- Motion respects your settings. If your device asks for reduced motion, animation is switched off rather than merely shortened.
- Live counters do not shout. The prayer countdown updates every second but is not announced repeatedly, because a value that changes each second would talk over everything else.
- Text can be resized and the layout reflows to narrow screens without a horizontal scrollbar.
What is not right yet
We would rather list these than claim they do not exist.
- No independent audit. Our testing is automated and internal. Automated tools catch perhaps a third to a half of real barriers; they cannot judge whether alt text is meaningful or whether a flow makes sense. We have not yet had this site tested by disabled users or an external auditor.
- Content added over time. Announcements, events and images are written by ICL volunteers through the control panel. Alt text is a required field and generic placeholders are rejected, but the quality of a description still depends on the person writing it.
- Documents. Any PDF or file we attach may not meet the same standard as the site. Ask us and we will provide the content in another format.
Tell us
If any part of this site is difficult to use, we want to know. You do not need to explain the technical reason, and you do not need to use the right words. Describe what you were trying to do and what happened.
Email info@icl-huda.org or call +1 (949) 288-1812. We aim to acknowledge within 5 working days and to tell you what we intend to do and when.
If you need information from this site in another format (large print, plain text, or read out over the phone), ask, and we will provide it. There is no charge and you do not have to give a reason.
If we do not resolve it
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may raise it with ICL’s board through the same address, marking it for the board’s attention. You also retain the right to complain to the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
How to check for yourself
The accessibility tests described above run from this site’s own source code, and their results are not private to us. If you maintain this site, they are npm run verify:a11y, npm run verify:contrast and npm run verify:nojs, and they are part of the standard npm run verify suite.
This statement was prepared on based on an internal review of the site against WCAG 2.2 Level AA.