Accessibility Statement

gicnt.org is intended to be usable by everyone, including people who navigate by keyboard, use a screen reader, magnify the page or rely on speech input. This statement records the standard the site is measured against, what is in place so far, what remains to be verified before launch, and how to report a problem.

01. The standard this site is measured against

Accessibility is assessed against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines rather than against an internal definition, because a published standard can be tested by someone other than its author.

Reference	Version	What it governs
WCAG	2.2, a W3C Recommendation since 5 October 2023	The target is Level AA. WCAG 2.2 contains 86 success criteria in total, of which 55 sit at Levels A and AA combined.
EN 301 549	Current published version	The harmonised European standard for accessible ICT, presently built on WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

WCAG 2.2 is backward compatible with earlier versions, so meeting Level AA under 2.2 also satisfies requirements written against 2.1 or 2.0. The next revision of EN 301 549 is expected to move its reference forward to WCAG 2.2, which is a further reason to work to the newer version now.

02. Current conformance status

This site is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Partially conformant means that most of the standard is met but some content does not yet meet every applicable success criterion.

The site is currently under development. A full assessment is scheduled before public launch; the date of the assessment and the method used (internal self-assessment or an external evaluation) will be recorded on this page once the assessment has been carried out.

Why we do not claim full conformance: stating a level that has not been fully tested is the commonest defect in accessibility statements, and it converts a good faith commitment into an inaccurate declaration. We prefer to state, and later evidence, what has actually been established.

03. Accessibility features the site is built with

The following requirements are applied across the site and are the elements most often relied on by readers using assistive technology:

semantic heading structure, so that a page can be navigated by heading level rather than read linearly;

descriptive link text, avoiding constructions such as “click here” that carry no meaning out of context;

text alternatives for images that convey information, and null alternatives for images that are decorative;

keyboard operability for every interactive element, with a visible focus indicator;

text that reflows without horizontal scrolling when magnified, and layout that does not depend on a fixed viewport width;

colour contrast meeting the Level AA ratio for body text, with colour never used as the only means of conveying meaning; and

pages that remain readable and navigable with author styles disabled.

04. How accessibility is assessed

Automated tooling alone is not an assessment: published estimates put the share of accessibility barriers that automated checking detects at roughly a third, so the remainder has to be found by hand. The pre-launch assessment therefore combines:

automated scanning across page templates rather than across individual pages, since templates are where defects repeat;

manual keyboard traversal of every interactive component, checking focus order and focus visibility;

screen reader testing on at least one desktop and one mobile combination;

text resizing to 200% and reflow checked at a viewport width of 320 CSS pixels; and

contrast measured rather than estimated by eye.

Findings from this assessment, with the point by which each is expected to be resolved, will be recorded in the limitations section below.

05. Known limitations

No barriers have been documented yet: the site is still in development and the pre-launch assessment has not been completed. This section will be filled in from the assessment findings — each barrier with its effect on the reader and the target date for resolution, so that the entry can be checked rather than taken on trust. Where a barrier sits in content supplied by a third party, the alternative route to that content will be given rather than the limitation simply being recorded.

06. Where the European Accessibility Act applies

Directive (EU) 2019/882, the European Accessibility Act, has applied since 28 June 2025 and reaches organisations outside the European Union where they offer covered products or services to consumers inside it. Its scope is defined by category: e-commerce, consumer banking, electronic communications, transport services, audiovisual media services, e-readers and certain hardware.

A business-to-business information site of this kind does not fall within those categories, so the Act does not impose obligations here. Conformance is pursued because the readers of this site include people using assistive technology, which is a reason that stands on its own without a statute behind it.

07. Reporting an accessibility problem

Reports are welcome, including ones that turn out to be usability complaints rather than conformance failures. A description of what happened is enough; naming the success criterion is not expected.

Email: [email protected]

Useful to include, where known: the page address, what you were trying to do, your browser and any assistive technology in use.

What happens next: we acknowledge reports promptly, assess them against the standard, and reply with a remediation timescale.

Alternative formats: where content cannot be made accessible within a reasonable period, an alternative format is provided on request.

Escalation: if a response is unsatisfactory, the matter can be escalated to the national enforcement body responsible for accessibility in your country (in the United Kingdom, the Equality and Human Rights Commission).