Accessibility Statement

Mandarin Steps should be usable by everyone learning Chinese, including people who navigate by keyboard, use a screen reader, or need reduced motion. We build to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA and treat accessibility as part of shipping, not an afterthought.

Measures in place

These are concrete steps that are live on the site today:

• Keyboard navigable. The site and the interactive placement check and vocabulary drills can be operated with the keyboard alone, with a visible focus indicator and a skip-to-content link at the top of every page.
• Sufficient contrast. Text and interactive controls are designed to meet the WCAG AA contrast ratios in both the light and dark themes.
• Reduced motion. We respect the operating-system prefers-reduced-motion setting and suppress non-essential animation for visitors who ask for it.
• Readable on mobile. Wide vocabulary tables stack into a single readable column on small screens instead of forcing horizontal scrolling.
• Semantic structure. Pages use real headings, landmarks, lists, and descriptive link text so assistive technology can navigate them, and Chinese characters and pinyin are marked up so they read correctly.

How we check

Before this site goes live and as we ship changes, we run automated and manual accessibility checks against the WCAG 2.2 AA rules, and a serious or critical issue blocks the release. Automated testing does not catch everything, so we also walk the site by keyboard. Accessibility is an ongoing effort: guidelines and our content evolve, and we may not have caught every issue.

Report a problem

If you hit a barrier on this site, or something is hard to use with your assistive technology, please tell us. Describe the page and what went wrong, and we will work to fix it. Reach the publisher through the Urban Algorithm contact page. Mandarin Steps is a project of Urban Algorithm LLC.