Built for people who are unwell

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA across the site. We are not claiming full conformance — that requires an independent audit we have not yet commissioned. What follows is what is genuinely in place, and what is genuinely not.

What is in place

• 🎨

  Contrast is measured, not judged by eye

  All body text meets or exceeds the 4.5:1 ratio WCAG requires, and large text 3:1. White-on-dark text uses a fixed set of three tested values rather than ad-hoc transparency, and every pairing is checked by a script that fails the build rather than a designer squinting at a screen. Colour is never the only way information is conveyed — evidence tiers, for instance, always carry a text label alongside their colour.

• 🌀

  Motion respects your system setting

  Brain fog, light sensitivity and vestibular symptoms are common in tick-borne illness, and animation can make all three worse. Every animation on this site is decorative, and every one is switched off when your operating system requests reduced motion. The animated hero background renders a single still frame instead of disappearing. Nothing on the site requires an animation to have played in order to be readable — with motion off, or with JavaScript disabled entirely, all content is visible immediately.

• ⌨️

  Everything works from the keyboard

  Interactive controls are real buttons and links, not clickable containers, so they can be reached with Tab and operated with Enter or Space. Expandable sections announce whether they are open. The first Tab press on any page reveals a skip-to-content link. Focus is always visible — we never remove the focus outline, and the ring changes colour on dark surfaces so it stays visible there too (a script measures both, and fails when either stops being true).

• 🧠

  Low cognitive load is treated as a requirement

  Generous spacing, short line lengths, clear hierarchy and no dense walls of text. Where a page has a long form and a short one, the short one is the default. Pages are printable, because reading on paper is easier for some people and because a printout is useful to hand to a clinician.

• 📱

  Usable at any size, without horizontal scrolling

  Layouts reflow rather than shrink, text scales with your browser or system font size, and the site works zoomed in. Tap targets are generous — an entire card is the link, not just its title.

What a machine has checked, and when

On 28 August 2026 the whole site — every public page and every signed-in surface — went through an automated accessibility audit: axe-core rules on every page as really rendered, keyboard-only walks of about 2,300 tab stops, reduced-motion emulation, 320-pixel reflow, and a code review of every form, graphic and interactive control. What it found was fixed or is listed under the gaps below, and a script now re-runs the core of it so the fixes cannot quietly rot. Machine-audited is not screen-reader-tested. A machine can verify an announcement exists; only a person who relies on a screen reader can say whether it makes sense. That testing has not happened yet, and the list below says so.

What we know is not done

A statement listing no problems is either untrue or untested. These are ours.

• The site has not been tested end to end with screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver). The 2026-08-28 automated audit below is not a substitute for that — a machine can verify that announcements exist, not that they make sense by ear — and it is scheduled before public launch.Still true when the automated audit last looked · 28 August 2026
• It has not been reviewed by an accessibility specialist or by disabled users. Both are planned.Still true when the automated audit last looked · 28 August 2026
• One light-grey text style used for small labels across the site measures below the contrast floor we hold everything else to (about 2.5:1 against the 4.5:1 target). Found by the 2026-08-28 audit; the recolour is queued as a deliberate design pass rather than an overnight change, because it touches most pages.Still true when the automated audit last looked · 28 August 2026
• Some pages are still being converted from earlier prototypes. Converted pages meet the standards above; the remainder are being brought up to them.
• Emoji are used as decorative icons. They are hidden from assistive technology so they are not read aloud, but a small number of older screen-reader and browser combinations may still announce them.

Report a barrier

If any part of this site is hard or impossible for you to use, please tell us at accessibility@lymehq.com. Whatever detail you can manage helps — the page, what you were trying to do, and what happened. Your browser and any assistive technology you use are useful if you know them, but do not let not knowing stop you writing.

See also our privacy policy. LymeHQ is currently built by a solo founder, so replies come from a person and may take a few days.