Skip to content
Build a packing list

Accessibility Commitment

On this page

Our accessibility commitment

Change Gear is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, including outdoor enthusiasts with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities. We believe everyone should have equal access to clear outdoor gear advice, backpacking checklists, and technical equipment specifications.

We actively work to increase the accessibility and usability of our website, adhering to established digital design guidelines.

Accessibility standards

Our goal is to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA standards. These guidelines describe how to make web content more accessible to people with diverse disabilities and more intuitive for all web users.

Key accessibility measures

We incorporate several design and technical features to support accessible browsing:

  • Structured heading hierarchy: Our articles and buying guides follow a strict semantic heading structure to ensure screen reader users can navigate directly to specific sections.
  • High color contrast: All text, spec callouts, and table borders are formatted with high color contrast ratios, exceeding WCAG 2.2 AA requirements for readability in varied lighting conditions.
  • Keyboard accessibility: All navigation links, interactive packing-list tools, and scrollable comparison tables can be operated using standard keyboard controls without requiring a mouse.
  • Descriptive link text: We avoid vague link labels such as click here or read more, using descriptive anchor text that explains the destination of every link.
  • Accessible tables and lists: Gear specifications and packing lists use semantic HTML table and list structures with proper header attributes, ensuring clear announcements on screen-reading devices.

Testing and evaluation methods

We check our website accessibility through automated testing and validation:

  • Automated accessibility scans: We run automated accessibility checks using axe-core and Lighthouse to identify potential code issues, contrast deficiencies, and missing ARIA attributes.
  • Automated keyboard checks: Our test suite verifies skip-to-content navigation, keyboard focus progression, visible focus indicators, and keyboard access to scrollable comparison tables across templates.
  • Content and markup validation: Our build validation checks semantic heading hierarchy, descriptive link text, and image alt attributes before pages are published.

Feedback and reporting barriers

We welcome feedback on the accessibility of Change Gear. If you encounter any accessibility barrier, difficulty reading our comparison tables, or trouble using our checklists, please let us know:

Please provide the URL of the page where you encountered the issue and describe the problem along with any assistive technology you were using. We review accessibility reports and reply by email as soon as we can.