Using this site, whatever you use to read it

People often arrive here tired, upset, or reading one-handed at three in the morning. That is most of the reason this site is built the way it is, and it is why the things below are not an afterthought.

What we have not done, first

This site has not been formally audited. Nobody has tested it against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and written up the result, so we are not going to tell you it meets them. We aim at WCAG 2.2 level AA and we have not proved we are there.

In particular, these have not been checked by a person: how it reads with a screen reader, how it behaves at high zoom or with a custom stylesheet, and how the color contrast measures on every element in both light and dark. When that work is done, the date and what it found will appear on this page.

What is built in

These are checked against the pages as they are actually delivered, not intended:

• A skip link on every page, so a keyboard or screen reader user can jump straight to the content without going through the menu.
• One main heading per page and headings in order underneath it, which is how a screen reader user moves around a page rather than reading all of it.
• Real landmarks. A header, a main region and a footer on every page.
• Every image has a text description written for what it shows.
• Links say where they go. No lone "read more" or "click here", which are useless when links are read out of context.
• Light, dark, or whatever your device is set to, chosen from the header and remembered.
• Pages work as text. The words are in the page itself rather than assembled afterwards, so a slow connection, an old browser or a reading tool still gets the whole thing.
• Nothing moves on its own, nothing flashes, and nothing takes over the screen while you are reading.

Getting help in a hurry

The crisis contacts are never behind a sign-up, a payment, or finishing a page. If what you write suggests you may be in danger, they appear straight away, and they are plain links and phone numbers that work the ordinary way.

Reading the passages

Body text is set large and loosely spaced on purpose, and it scales when you make text bigger in your browser. Passages are given in full rather than as a reference you have to go and look up. The King James wording is given alongside the modern one in the articles, and on the topic pages wherever it reads differently, because for some readers it is the version they know by heart.

If something does not work

Please tell us. A specific problem is far more useful than a general one: the page, what you were using to read it, and what happened. We will fix what we can and say so here when we do. Get in touch.

If you have found something that stops you using the site altogether, say so and it goes to the front of the queue.

Where this sits

The privacy page covers what happens to what you type, the cookies page covers what is stored in your browser, and the terms cover use of the site.