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Accessibility

Last updated: June 2026

Flanders Scientific, Inc. is committed to making our online shop usable for everyone, including people who navigate with assistive technology. This page summarizes how we have built the site, what we know is working well, what we are still improving, and how to report problems you run into.

The standard we target

Our goal is conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA. We are not formally certified. We treat WCAG 2.1 AA as the bar to hit, and we audit against it whenever we ship significant interface changes.

What is in place today

Semantic structure. Pages use standard HTML5 landmarks — <header>, <nav>, <main>, and <footer> — so screen readers and keyboard users can move between major regions of every page directly.

Skip-to-content link. The first element in the keyboard tab order is a "Skip to main content" link that jumps past the site header and navigation. It becomes visible the moment it receives focus.

Keyboard navigation. All interactive controls — menus, dialogs, the cart flyout, search, forms — are reachable by Tab. Pressing Escape closes any open menu or dialog. Menus that are hidden from sight are also hidden from the tab order (via the inert attribute) so focus never lands in invisible UI.

Visible focus. A clear focus ring is applied to interactive elements when they are reached by keyboard, using :focus-visible so the ring does not appear unnecessarily during mouse use.

ARIA labelling. Icon-only buttons (search, cart, mobile menu), navigation regions, and modal dialogs carry aria-label or aria-labelledby attributes so they announce their purpose to assistive technology. The cart flyout is marked as a modal dialog with a descriptive label.

Images. Product, bundle, and brand images include alternative text. When a per-image alt-text field is empty, we fall back to the product or bundle name so the description is never silent on essential content. Purely decorative images use an empty alt="" attribute so they are skipped by screen readers instead of being announced as "image."

Language. The HTML document declares its language (lang="en") so screen readers pronounce content correctly.

Reduced motion. Visitors who set a system-level "reduce motion" preference get a calmer experience — in particular, the homepage carousel pauses auto-advancement and crossfades are suppressed.

Color and contrast. The site is built dark-by-default with text colors chosen to meet AA contrast against the surrounding background. Brand accents (the FSI blue, red sale prices, green savings pills) are paired with non-color cues (labels, icons, position) so meaning is never carried by color alone.

Buttons and links. We use <button> for things that do something on the current page (open a menu, add to cart, toggle a field) and <a> for things that change the page. This keeps assistive technology announcements correct and keyboard activation predictable (Space and Enter on buttons, Enter on links).

Form labels. Checkout, contact, and account forms use visible labels above each field. Address pickers and method selectors use radio cards with the entire card as the activation target.

What we are still improving

We want to be honest about where there is more to do:

  • Form label associations. Some checkout fields currently rely on a visible label and placeholder pairing rather than an explicit for= / id= binding. We are working through the checkout and account flows to add explicit associations.
  • Live announcements. Cart updates and shipping-rate refreshes update the page visually but do not yet announce through an aria-live region. This is on our short list.
  • Heading order. A handful of templates skip a heading level (for example, jumping from H1 straight to H3 in a sidebar). We are tightening this page by page.
  • Independent audit. We have not yet commissioned a third-party WCAG audit. Our current claims come from internal review.

Known limitations

  • Some embedded third-party widgets (payment provider iframes such as Authorize.Net Accept.js and PayPal, the reCAPTCHA challenge on the Service Request form) are rendered by external services. We do not control their internal markup or focus behavior. If you cannot complete an order or service request because of one of these widgets, please contact us using one of the methods below and we will assist you directly.
  • The site is currently English-only.

Reporting an issue or asking for help

If you encounter a barrier on this site — something a screen reader does not announce, a control you cannot reach by keyboard, copy you cannot read — we want to hear about it and we will help directly while we fix it.

Please contact us at Support@FlandersScientific.com or Sales@FlandersScientific.com. Including the page URL and a short description of what went wrong helps us reproduce and fix the problem quickly. If you are blocked from completing a purchase or a service request, we are also happy to take the order directly by phone — reach us at (678) 835-4934.

We aim to acknowledge accessibility reports within one business day.