Accessibility Statement - The Towne Law Firm, P.C.

Accessibility Statement – The Towne Law Firm, P.C.

The Towne Law Firm is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for as many disabled and impaired people as possible. We strive to create an outstanding experience for everyone, both at our offices and on our website.

Measures to Support Accessibility relating to The Towne Law Firm Website

The Towne Law Firm has commissioned an external accessibility assessment with remediation of violations in July 2023 for The Towne Law Firm website, https://townelaw.com.

This accessibility statement will make users with different needs aware of the current level of accessibility and limitations of The Towne Law Firm website and provides the name and contact details of the dedicated accessibility officer at the Albany office for feedback and further assistance if required.

Conformance Status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

There are three levels of conformance within the four success criteria principles Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust:

Level A,

Level AA, and

Level AAA.

The standard for web accessibility globally is WCAG 2.1 Level A & AA.

The Towne Law Firm website platform has been assessed and remediated to conform with WCAG 2.1 Level A & AA and the Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust principles.

The Towne Law Firm website is conformant with WCAG 2.1 Level A & AA with reference to all elements within the company’s control.

All images have meaningful Alt-text provisions.
The user can zoom in on the website content up to 500% without screen visibility loss.
Assistive technology users will be able to understand the purpose and access links, lists and buttons, also within carousels.
Assistive technology users will be able to understand the destination of links, e.g., they will know if a link opens up a new tab or is an external link.
The heading structure is optimized for use with assistive technology and has the correct focus order.
Assistive technology users will be able to identify and understand navigation elements and buttons.
Contrast ratios for text and non-text elements are accessible.
Keyboard-only navigation with the correct focus order is enabled. This also applies to submenus and modals. A skip to main content link helps keyboard-only users with navigation.
Some externally controlled elements are not conformant with WCAG 1 Level A & AA. Please refer to the ‘Known Limitations’ section below to see which of the website pages and actions are affected.

Feedback

We would love to get feedback from website users on the accessibility of The Towne Law Firm website platform. Please let us know if you encounter further accessibility barriers on our website so that we can help you and others who may be experiencing the same:

Kate Gagnon: kate.gagnon@townelaw.com

We try to respond to feedback within 5 business days.

Compatibility with Browsers and Assistive Technology

The Towne Law Firm website platform was tested for accessibility using the Google Chrome browser and JAWS screen reader.

The web platform is compatible with a JAWS screen reader. It is therefore expected to be compatible with assistive technology on recent versions of operating systems (desktop and mobile) mac OS X, Microsoft Windows & Android, and Apple iOS.

The web platform is expected to be compatible with the following:

The use of up-to-date versions of JAWS screen readers and browser versions of Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera, IE 11 and with assistive technology on recent versions of operating systems (desktop and mobile) mac OS X, Microsoft Windows & Android, and Apple iOS.

The Towne Law Firm website platform cannot be expected to be not compatible with:

Any browsers that are older than 3 major versions or assistive technology and mobile operating systems that are older than 5 years.

Limitations

The accessibility of The Towne Law Firm website platform has limitations for some users with disabilities and impairments. Below is a description of known limitations within certain pages and actions on the platform.

Please contact the accessibility officer at The Towne Law Firm if you observe an issue not listed below.

Any third-party, externally controlled elements or software installed on The Towne Law Firm website platform currently or in the future may not be standards compliant. The Towne Law Firm is unable to make changes to their platforms. This needs to be done by the third-party providers. Please contact The Towne Law Firm directly if you require their contact details.

Known Limitations for The Towne Law Firm Website Platform

The Towne Law Firm website platform was intended to be designed and developed in accordance with the four WCAG principles – Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust – and with a broad spectrum of physical, cognitive, and situational limitations in mind. Some violations were discovered during a WCAG conformance and usability assessment, which could not be addressed in the remediation process.

The Towne Law Firm would make any user affected by different access requirements aware of the following known limitations on individual web pages. Assistive technology users in particular would need assistance with the use of the following pages and actions on the platform:

Web Pages with Facebook Widget: Text content lacks color contrast. The Facebook icon links are opening in new tab, but the screen reader user is unaware of this. This is an external Facebook widget iframe which can’t be modified by the Towne Law Firm’s web developers.
Web Pages with Google Maps Widget: Text content and icon lack color contrast. The expand/collapse toggle, and view larger map icon, zoom in and zoom out icons are not accessible using the keyboard and the button role is missing for these actions. This is a Google Maps widget which can’t be modified by the Towne Law Firm’s web developers.
Web Pages with YouTube video Widget: On using keyboard-only navigation, externally controlled videos do not keep the focus on the element that is being operated. This is a YouTube widget which can’t be modified by the Towne Law Firm’s web developers.
Web Pages with Contact Form: The autocomplete attribute value is not provided for First name, Last name, Addresses, Phone, email fields. This is an externally controlled contact form which can’t be modified by the Towne Law web developers.

Assessment Approach

Access Design Studio assessed the accessibility of The Towne Law Firm website platform in July 2023 by using the following approaches:

Manual assessments using visual testing.
JAWS screen reader testing by a blind auditor.

A full website accessibility audit report has been submitted to The Towne Law Firm, listing WCAG 2.1 Level A & AA violations, best practice failures and the remediation work was undertaken by Access Design Studio in accordance with the assessment results.