This site runs on Arc XP, a publishing platform by the Washington Post. If you have any trouble browsing the site or accessing the content, please email us at stecklei@usc.edu.
Our commitment
We’re committed to building a robust, inclusive, and accessible platform for all audiences. We strive to meet level AA standards from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
Currently, our sites meet most of the standards and are substantially compliant with the AA standards. We’re working to bridge any remaining gaps by partnering with student journalists and contributors to ensure that stories are accessible. There’s more for us to do, and we’ll continue updating this page as we improve.
Site features
- Each page on this site has semantic regions for the navigation, main content, and footer so that you can move around quickly.
- Stories begin with an h1 heading, and we’ve done our best to ensure headings follow a logical order.
- You should be able to zoom up to 300% without any issues.
- We do not use advertisements on our site.
- We support captions in our video players.
- Subscription forms and social sharing menus are more usable.
- All images have alt text.
How do we test the platform - do we do this?
The Web Production Desk reviews our sites using Google Lighthouse every semester.
Future improvements
Here are a few things we’re hoping to update in the coming months:
- Site navigation
- Some elements are not in the order you’d expect when using a keyboard to navigate.
- Embeds and third-party content needs accessible names.
- Updating design elements to improve color contrast and navigability.
Along with these improvements, we’re continuing to work with contributors to ensure that news stories are accessible to people with disabilities. This includes adding the following:
- Alternative text for content images.
- Captions for videos.
- Transcripts for podcasts and audio files.
- Text descriptions for ads.
- Options to reduce motion in ads and interactive stories.
We’ll continue updating this page as we improve the platform.
Contact us
If you have any feedback or questions about accessibility, we’d love to hear from you at stecklei@usc.edu. Please include details about the site you’re trying to access and the kind of assistive technology you use.
Published: 3/20/2023
Last updated: 3/20/2023
* Accessibility Standards adapted from Vox Media.