Accessibility statement

Our aim

We want everyone to be able to find and enjoy dessert shops on The Dessert Detective. We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA.

What we have done

• Text and controls meet the colour contrast minimums (4.5:1 for text), in both light and dark mode. Dark mode follows your device, and you can switch it.
• Everything works with a keyboard: buttons, links, menus, dialogs and the search box. A visible outline shows where you are, and a "Skip to the main content" link comes first on every page.
• Photos have text descriptions, or are marked as decoration when they add nothing.
• Dialogs (reviews, saving to a list, reports) keep keyboard focus inside them and return it when they close.
• Movement is kept small and switches off if your device asks for reduced motion. There are no auto-playing animations on the homepage.
• Buttons and links are at least 44 pixels tall on phones.
• Pages use the right headings, labels and landmarks, and the page language is set to British English.

What isn’t right yet

• The map on Near me and on shop and city pages can’t be fully used without sight or a mouse. Every map has the same shops as a list next to or under it, with distances, and that list is the accessible way to use it.
• Videos on case files come from Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, inside their own players. We can’t fix those players, and the videos have no captions or transcripts from us yet. Each case file has a written summary.
• QR codes on shop stickers and posters: the address the code opens is now printed under it, so it can be typed instead. Offer codes are always shown as text next to their QR code.
• The downloadable PDF print files (stickers, posters, offer cards) are images, so screen readers can’t read them. Everything on them is also on the page you download them from.
• A few older pages (some detective and redirect pages) still use older layouts and haven’t been checked as carefully.
• We haven’t yet tested the site with a screen reader by hand, only with automated checks.

Tell us about a problem

If something doesn’t work for you, or you need information in another format, email [email protected] or use our contact form. Tell us the page and what happened. We aim to reply within 5 working days.

If you aren’t happy with our reply, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

How we tested

Last tested on 7 October 2026 with Google Lighthouse (accessibility checks, which use the axe engine) in a phone-sized window, on the homepage, search, Near me, a shop page, a case file, the sign-up page and the business portal sign-in. The quick review and Save dialogs open on top of a page, so this test didn’t cover them; they will be checked by hand.

Automated tools find only some problems, which is why we also list what we know isn’t right above.