Accessibility Statement (Barrierefreiheit)

Our commitment

We want this site to be usable by as many people as possible, including people using assistive technology such as screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, or browser zoom. WCAG 2.1 Level AA is our working target for every page we ship.

What's implemented

Semantic HTML landmarks (header, nav, main, footer) and a heading structure that doesn't skip levels
A "skip to main content" link for keyboard and screen-reader users
Visible focus outlines on every interactive element, including the impact calculator slider and the interactive service demos
Alt text on meaningful images; purely decorative graphics (the hero grain animation, the vision arcs) are marked aria-hidden so screen readers skip them
Full keyboard operability for the impact-risk calculator, the accelerator demo, and the mission-risk demo — none of them require a mouse or touch input
prefers-reduced-motion is respected throughout: the intro sequence, hero grain and dust streaks, timeline reveal, and vision animation all reduce to a static state
Text and UI colors are checked against the site's fixed palette for contrast against their backgrounds
Layout that adapts from 375px phone widths up through large desktop screens, with no horizontal scrolling

Known limitations

We're transparent about what's still incomplete:

The two illustrative service demos (accelerator beamline, mission-risk schematic) are visual simulations without an equivalent text/data-table alternative for screen-reader users; the surrounding copy explains what each one shows.
Some smaller metadata text (dates, source citations) sits at the lower end of our type scale — legible, but not yet spot-checked against every possible display setting.

Feedback

If you hit an accessibility barrier anywhere on this site, tell us — we read every message. Email contact@the-cosmic-lab.com with a description of the issue and the page it's on, and we'll aim to respond within five business days.

Technical specifications

This site is built with semantic HTML5, CSS3, and vanilla JavaScript — no framework, no build step. Accessibility relies on standard HTML semantics and ARIA attributes rather than a third-party accessibility widget or overlay.