AreYouFashion is committed to making our content available to as many people as possible, regardless of ability or the technology they use. Accessibility is part of how we design and build, not an afterthought.
Our standard
We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, including visual, motor, auditory and cognitive.
What we’ve built in
- Semantic, structured HTML that works with assistive technology.
- Full keyboard navigation, with visible focus states on interactive elements.
- Sufficient colour contrast, and scalable, legible typography that reflows when you zoom.
- Descriptive alternative text on meaningful images.
- Respect for the reduced-motion preference, so animations calm down when you ask them to.
- A responsive layout that works from small phones to large screens without horizontal scrolling.
Assistive technology
We aim to support current versions of major screen readers and browsers. If a particular combination gives you trouble, please tell us — real-world reports are the most useful thing we receive.
Known limitations
Some third-party or embedded content may not fully meet our standards, and older articles may lag our current practice. We treat these as work to be done rather than exceptions to accept.
Ongoing work
Accessibility is never finished. We review it as we build new features and fix issues as we find them or as they are reported.
Tell us
If you encounter a barrier anywhere on AreYouFashion, email hello@areyoufashion.com with the page and what happened, and we will do our best to help you and to fix it.
Why accessibility matters to us
Fashion, beauty and lifestyle content should be easy to read and use, whatever device you’re on and however you browse. Some readers use a keyboard instead of a mouse, some use a screen reader, some zoom the page to read comfortably, and some simply prefer an uncluttered layout. AreYouFashion is built with all of them in mind — accessibility isn’t a box we tick once, it’s a standard we hold ourselves to every time we publish a story, design a template or update the site.
The standard we work towards
We treat the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA as our working goal for every page on the site. WCAG is the most widely recognised accessibility framework, covering how text, colour, navigation, images and interactive elements should behave so that people with visual, motor, auditory or cognitive disabilities can use a site comfortably. To be fully transparent: we have not undergone a formal third-party accessibility audit, and we do not hold any accessibility certification. WCAG AA is the bar we aim for and measure ourselves against internally, not a compliance claim we’re asserting. Where we fall short, we want to know — see “Known limitations” below.
How this shows up on the site
Rather than treating accessibility as an add-on, we’ve tried to bake it into the way AreYouFashion is built day to day:
- Semantic HTML structure — our pages use proper heading levels, landmarks and native HTML elements (rather than generic styled boxes standing in for buttons or links), so screen readers and other assistive technology can understand the layout of a page and let you jump between sections.
- Descriptive alt text — images that carry meaning, from editorial photography to product shots, are written with alternative text that describes what’s actually in the picture, so the content comes through even if the image itself doesn’t load or isn’t seen.
- Keyboard navigation — you can move through menus, articles and forms using Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter alone, without needing a mouse or touchscreen, and interactive elements show a visible focus outline so you can always see where you are.
- Colour contrast — our text and background colour pairings are chosen to stay readable in normal daylight and low light alike, rather than relying on decorative low-contrast type that looks good in a mockup but is hard to actually read.
- Responsive layout that supports zoom and reflow — the site is built to adapt to your screen and your settings. Zoom in to 200% or beyond and the layout reflows into a single readable column instead of forcing you to scroll sideways.
- Readable typography — our type sizes, line spacing and measure (the length of a line of text) are set for comfortable reading, not just visual style, across both headline and body copy.
- Clear link text — we try to avoid vague links like “click here” or “read more” with no context, so that a link makes sense whether you read the surrounding sentence or hear it announced on its own by a screen reader.
Known limitations and ongoing work
We’re honest that this is a work in progress, not a finished state. Some older articles in our archive were published before our current design standards were in place and may not fully reflect the practices above; newer pages get accessibility review as we build them, but that review happens on a rolling basis rather than all at once. Some pages also include content we don’t build ourselves — embedded social posts, third-party video players, advertising creative or partner widgets — and we can’t guarantee that this embedded content meets the same standard as the parts of the site we design and code directly, since it’s controlled by the platform that provides it. If you notice a recurring issue, such as a missing alt tag, a link that doesn’t make sense out of context, or a low-contrast section, that’s exactly the kind of thing we want reported, because it tells us where our internal review missed something.
Tell us if something isn’t working
If you hit a barrier anywhere on the site — an image without useful alt text, a control you can’t reach by keyboard, text that’s hard to read against its background, or anything else that gets in the way — we want to hear about it. Please get in touch through our contact page with the page you were on and a short description of what happened. Specific, real-world reports are the most useful input we get, and we treat them as work to prioritise rather than feedback to file away.
Frequently asked questions
Is AreYouFashion accessible?
We work hard to make AreYouFashion accessible, but we don’t claim it’s fully or perfectly accessible on every page. The site is built with semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, descriptive alt text, sufficient colour contrast and a responsive layout that supports zooming and reflow. Older archive pages and some third-party embedded content may not fully meet this standard yet, which is why we treat accessibility as ongoing work rather than a finished achievement. If you run into a barrier anywhere on the site, we’d genuinely like to know so we can fix it.
What accessibility standards does AreYouFashion follow?
We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA as our internal goal for design and development decisions across the site. It’s important to be clear about what that means in practice: WCAG AA is the standard we aim towards and check our own work against, not a certification we hold or a formal audit result we’re claiming. We haven’t commissioned an independent third-party accessibility audit. We simply use WCAG AA as the working benchmark for things like colour contrast, keyboard access, heading structure and alt text as we build and update pages.
How do I report an accessibility problem?
The best way is through our contact page at areyoufashion.com/contact — send a short note describing the page you were on, what you were trying to do, and what went wrong (for example, a control that wouldn’t respond to the keyboard, text that was hard to read, or an image with no useful description). Concrete reports like this are far more useful to us than a general comment, because they tell us exactly where to look. We read every message and treat accessibility reports as genuine work to prioritise, not just feedback to store.
Can I use AreYouFashion with a screen reader or keyboard?
Yes — the site is built with semantic HTML and landmark structure so screen readers can navigate headings and page sections in a logical order, and every interactive element (menus, links, buttons, forms) is designed to be reachable and operable using a keyboard alone, with a visible focus indicator so you can track where you are. That said, we haven’t run a formal audit against every assistive technology and browser combination, and some older pages or embedded third-party content may behave less consistently than our current templates. If you find a specific page or component that doesn’t work well with your screen reader or keyboard setup, please tell us via the contact page — that kind of real-world report helps us fix the exact spot that needs it.