This statement was created on March 25, 2024.
We’re committed to easy access for everyone
Scientific American is committed to making our website as accessible as possible to everyone, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments. We're constantly working towards improving the accessibility of our website to ensure we provide equal access to all of our users.
As part of our commitment to accessibility, we ensure that our website is compatible with:
- Recent versions of popular screen readers
- Operating system screen magnifiers
- Speech recognition software
- Operating system speech packages
We make sure that our website follows accessibility best practices by following the principles of universal design. This ensures the site is flexible and adaptable to different users’ needs or preferences and is accessible through a variety of different technologies, including mobile devices or assistive technologies.
During the development phase we endeavor to follow WebAIM’s Principles of Accessible Design, and also try to help improve the accessibility of our website for users with disabilities by:
- Retaining the ability to adjust the font size
- Maintaining color/contrast ratios for text
- Providing keyboard accessible navigation
- Providing skip to content links at the top of the page
- Exposing information to the accessibility API through the use of ARIA attributes
We also monitor the accessibility of ScientificAmerican.com through the internally maintained tool Pa11y.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1
Wherever possible, the SceintificAmerican.com site will adhere to level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2). These guidelines outline four main principles that state that sites should be:
- Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive
- Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable
- Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable
- Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies
Optimizing your set-up for your needs
The AbilityNet website provides guidance to make your computer more accessible, enabling computer users to make the most of the internet whatever their ability or disability. It offers help with seeing the screen, using your keyboard and mouse, hearing sounds, and with reading and spelling.
Contacting us
If you would like to request accessibility-related assistance, report any accessibility problems, or request any information in accessible alternative formats, please use the accessibility queries form or email us at help@sciam.com. Please be sure to include information about the browser, operating system, and assistive technology you’re using.
To help us assist you with any issues you have, it is recommended that you read the WAI’s Contacting Organisations about Inaccessible Websites, and provide the information advised in your request.