If it cannot be read, it has failed.

What we have done

Words

• Plain language throughout, checked for reading age. The young people’s page and the section written for younger children are deliberately simpler again.
• No counselling jargon in navigation. You do not need to know what "systemic" or "psychodynamic" means to find the right page.
• Short paragraphs, a maximum line length of about 62 characters, and no justified text — both help dyslexic readers.
• Headings in a strict order, so a screen reader user can skim the page structure rather than read every word.
• Link text that makes sense out of context. No "click here".

Reading controls

• Text size — three steps, up to about 128% of the default, applied to everything rather than only the body text.
• More space — increases line height, letter spacing and word spacing for readers who find dense text hard to track.
• Calm mode — removes background colour, decorative illustration and all movement, leaving text on a single plain ground. The room drawings stay, because they carry information. Built for anyone who finds decoration distracting or overwhelming.
• Your setting is stored on your own device and nowhere else. It also works if you turn JavaScript off — the site simply keeps its default settings.

Movement

• Nothing moves on its own except one small light in some illustrations, which fades very slowly.
• If your device is set to reduce motion, all animation and smooth scrolling are switched off automatically. Calm mode does the same thing.
• Nothing auto-plays, nothing flashes, and nothing appears over the content unless you asked for it.

Colour and contrast

• Every text and background pairing on the site meets WCAG 2.2 AA. Body text on the main background exceeds AAA.
• Colour is never the only signal. The four audience colours are always accompanied by a label, and links carry underlines rather than colour alone.
• The site responds to a system "increase contrast" setting, and it is usable in Windows High Contrast mode.

Keyboard and assistive technology

• Everything can be operated by keyboard alone, in a logical order, with a clearly visible focus ring on every control.
• A "skip to the main content" link is the first thing you reach on every page.
• Menus, the reading panel and the frequently-asked-question panels all announce their state, and close with the Escape key.
• The sideways-scrolling strips can be moved with the left and right arrow keys.
• Form errors are announced, described in words rather than colour, and focus moves to the first field that needs attention.
• Touch targets are at least 44 by 44 pixels.
• Illustrations that carry meaning have text descriptions; purely decorative ones are hidden from screen readers rather than read aloud as noise.

Speed and data

• No third-party trackers, no advertising scripts, no cookie banner, no embedded maps or videos loading from other companies.
• Two self-hosted typefaces, a 34 kB stylesheet and under 6 kB of JavaScript. Every page reads and navigates without any JavaScript at all.
• There is no sourced photography and no raster illustration library. Every page illustration is generated as SVG, so pages stay light on a slow connection and sharp at any size. The build also generates PNG social cards and application icons, which browsers never download while you read.

What we know is not perfect

• The sideways-scrolling story strips are more comfortable with a mouse or a finger than with a keyboard, even with arrow key support. The cards are in ordinary reading order in the page’s code, so screen reader and keyboard users read them in sequence either way.
• At the largest text setting, one or two table headings wrap awkwardly on very narrow phones. The content stays readable; it is simply not as tidy as the rest.
• The building itself has a first-floor room and no lift. That limitation is described honestly on the Our Space page, along with what we do about it.

Standard

This site is intended to conform to WCAG 2.2 level AA, and meets level AAA for contrast on body text and for several other criteria. It has been checked with automated testing across every page, with a keyboard, and at 200% and 400% zoom.

Tell us if we have got it wrong

In the real version of this practice, this is where you would find an email address and a telephone number, with a promise to fix anything that is hard to read, hard to operate or hard to understand. Harbour is a concept, so there is nowhere to write — but the standard described on this page is the one the build was actually held to.

If you would prefer any of this information as a printed sheet, a large-print sheet, or read to you over the phone, ask and we will do that.

Access at the building itself