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Accessibility

This page describes what the site's own pages do for accessibility, and where the gaps are. It covers One Game a Day itself. The games are a separate matter, dealt with under Known gaps.

Keyboard​

  • Skip link. The first focusable item on every page is a "Skip to content" link. It is hidden until it receives focus, then appears at the top of the page and jumps to the main content.
  • Everything is reachable. Navigation, game cards, filters, the player controls and the search panel are ordinary links, buttons and form fields, so they work with Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter and Space.
  • Search from the keyboard. Press / (when not typing in a field) or Ctrl + K to open the search panel. The up and down arrow keys move through results, Enter opens one, and Esc closes the panel.
  • Lists without scripts. Search, category filters, sorting and paging on the game lists are plain links and a form. They work with JavaScript switched off, with an Apply button for the form.
  • No blocking dialogs. Clearing your lists on My games asks for a second press of the same button instead of opening a confirmation dialog.

Focus​

  • Visible focus. Links, buttons and form fields show a 3-pixel outline in the site's bright accent colour when reached from the keyboard. Results in the search panel show an inner highlight instead, and the panel's text field shows only its text cursor.
  • Focus moves into the game. When a game finishes loading, the player puts keyboard focus inside it so that keys work at once.
  • A way back out is announced. At the same moment the player announces that the game is ready and that Tab moves focus out of it.
  • The search panel holds focus. It opens as a modal dialog with the cursor in the search field.

Screen readers​

The pages are marked up so that assistive technology can make sense of them.

  • Landmarks. Each page has a header, a labelled main navigation, a main region and a footer. Breadcrumbs, pagers and the phone tab bar are labelled navigation regions, and the current page is marked in each.
  • Headings. Pages have a top-level heading, and the sections of the front page and the game page are each tied to their own heading.
  • Named controls. Icon-only buttons carry text labels, such as "Close search" and "Close the game and go back to the page". Decorative icons are hidden from assistive technology.
  • State. The Favourite button reports whether it is on.
  • Announcements. The player announces loading, errors, that a game is ready, favourite changes and "Link copied". Results in the search panel are announced as they change.
  • Artwork. Game artwork is treated as decoration, because each card and page gives the game's title, category and tagline as text.
  • Dates. Calendar leaves carry the full date as text and as a machine-readable date.
  • The game frame has a title naming the game.
  • Language. Pages declare English as their language.

Motion​

The site honours the "reduce motion" setting of your operating system or browser. When it is on, animations and transitions on the site's own pages are effectively switched off, and scrolling is not animated.

This applies to the site's pages. It does not change what happens inside a game.

Touch and small screens​

  • On screens up to about 760 pixels wide, the header navigation is replaced by a tab bar fixed to the bottom of the screen, with four destinations: Today, All games, Releases and My games. Each tab has an icon and a text label.
  • Standard buttons are at least 44 pixels tall. Some controls are smaller: the buttons in the slim bar above a full-window game are 40 pixels, category filter chips on game lists are 36 pixels, and tag links are 30 pixels tall.
  • Pages can be zoomed. The site does not disable pinch-zoom.
  • On a touch device a game fills the browser window while it is played, with a back arrow to return. A request to turn the phone sideways can be dismissed with "Play upright anyway".

Colour​

The site has a single, dark colour scheme. On game cards, the category, the release date and the play count are written as text and are not shown by colour alone.

Known gaps​

Games are third-party content. Each game is made by its own developer, and its accessibility is whatever that developer built. A game may depend on sight, hearing, timing or a particular input device. A game's listing carries no accessibility information, and no accessibility check is part of how games are validated.

Keyboard focus inside a game. While focus is inside a game, key presses belong to the game. Some games use the Tab key themselves, so Tab may not move focus back to the page; a mouse click or a tap outside the game does. The Esc key closes the full-window view only when focus is outside the game.

The player bar is hidden in full screen. Restart, Favourite and Share are not available until you leave full screen or the full-window view.

No light theme and no high-contrast theme. Only the dark scheme exists, and its colour contrast has not been measured against a standard.

An automatic reload. When the countdown on the front page reaches zero, the page reloads itself after a couple of seconds.

Horizontal rows. Some rows of game cards on the front page scroll sideways on smaller screens.

No formal audit. The site has not been audited against WCAG or any other standard, and no testing with screen readers or other assistive technology has been recorded. The features above are described from how the pages are built, not from an audit.

Limited browser testing. The site has been tested in Chrome only. See Devices and browsers.

English only. There are no translations.

If you meet a barrier, the About page says how to contact the team.