Accessibility statement

last updated 19 august 2026

the short version: everyone should be able to buy a shirt. if something on this site gets in your way, tell us and we will fix it, and we will make sure you get your order either way.

Our commitment

ani mal and friends is committed to making this website usable by as many people as possible, including people who browse with a keyboard, a screen reader, magnification, or a browser set to reduce motion. We treat accessibility as part of building the site, not as something bolted on afterwards.

The standard we aim for

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the World Wide Web Consortium), which is the standard generally referenced under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and under Section 508. We consider the site substantially conformant with that standard, with the exceptions honestly listed further down.

What we have done

• Keyboard. Every link, button, size picker, form field and picture you can click, you can also reach and operate with a keyboard alone. A "skip to the shop" link is the first thing the Tab key reaches.
• Visible focus. Whatever the keyboard is on carries a dashed outline dark enough to see against every background on the site.
• Colour contrast. Every piece of text on the site was measured against the colour behind it and meets the AA thresholds. We kept the pastel palette and darkened the lettering rather than the other way around, so the shop still looks like itself.
• Structure. One page heading, a real heading order under it, and proper header, navigation, main and footer landmarks, so a screen reader can jump around instead of reading from the top every time.
• Pictures. Every illustration that carries meaning has a written description. The purely decorative ones are marked as decorative so a screen reader skips them instead of reading out a list of flowers.
• Dialogs. The basket and the picture viewer keep the keyboard inside them while they are open, close on the Escape key, and put your place back where you left it.
• Sound. Nothing plays until you have been asked. On a first visit a small card appears once, on your first scroll, offering music on or off; whichever you choose is remembered and you are not asked again. From then on the card in the bottom corner switches it either way in one press, from a keyboard as readily as a mouse: it is a button like any other, reachable by Tab, operated with Space or Enter, and it says whether it is on. The volume is fixed low and the loop is the only sound on the site.
• Motion. If your device is set to reduce motion, every animation on the site stops, including the logo entrance and the fluttering garment. Nothing is hidden behind an animation that never plays.
• Zoom and reflow. The site works at 200% zoom and down to a 320px wide window without anything scrolling sideways or overlapping.
• The garment viewer. The 3D hanging shirt is decoration over real content. A "flip it over" button turns it without a mouse gesture, and the name, price, sizes and how many are left are ordinary text and buttons. If WebGL is unavailable, a still photograph takes its place and everything still works.
• Forms. Every field has a real label, and errors and confirmations are announced rather than only shown.

How we tested

We test automatically with axe-core against the WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 A and AA rule sets, at phone (390px), tablet (768px) and desktop (1440px) widths, plus a run with reduced motion turned on. As of the date at the top of this page, those runs report no violations on the shop page or on any of the policy pages.

We also test by hand: tabbing the whole page from top to bottom, opening and closing the basket and the picture viewer with the keyboard only, and checking the page at 200% zoom.

What we know is not perfect

every accessibility statement that claims perfection is lying. here is ours.

• No independent audit. Our testing is our own. We have not yet paid for a third-party accessibility audit or for testing by people who use assistive technology daily. Automated tools catch perhaps a third to a half of real problems, so we expect there are things we have missed.
• Screen readers. We have not tested with every combination of screen reader and browser. If something reads badly in yours, please tell us which one you use; that is the single most useful thing you can put in the email.
• Drag to turn. The garment can be dragged around with a pointer. That particular gesture has no keyboard equivalent, but nothing depends on it: the flip button shows you the other side, and every product detail is text.
• Typefaces. Our three typefaces load from Google's font servers. If they fail to load, or you block them, the site falls back to your system fonts and stays perfectly readable, though it looks plainer.
• Stripe's checkout. Payment happens on a page built and controlled by Stripe, so its accessibility is theirs rather than ours. If you hit a barrier there, tell us and we will take your order by email instead.

If the site does not work for you

you should never lose an order because our website was in the way.

Email support@animalandfriends.com and tell us what you want. We will take the order by email, confirm the price and postage in writing, and send you a payment link, or arrange another way to pay if that link is a problem too. There is no surcharge and no catch. This is a standing offer, not a favour.

Telling us about a problem

If any part of this site gets in your way, we want to hear about it. Please email support@animalandfriends.com with:

• the page or the thing you were trying to do,
• what happened instead,
• and, if you know it, the browser, device and any assistive technology you were using.

How to reach us

See also our terms of service, our privacy policy, and our shipping and returns policy.