Accessibility

This website is built towards Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, Level AA. That’s the standard the UK government uses for its own services, and the right bar for a website whose readers are largely between 35 and 65, often reading long pages, sometimes on a phone in poor light.

I’ve stopped short of saying it meets that standard, because there is one place it doesn’t and I’d rather name it than claim a clean sheet. It’s the first item under “where the site falls short” below.

I’m a small business rather than a public body, so the public sector accessibility regulations don’t apply to me. The Equality Act 2010 does, and with it the duty to make reasonable adjustments. This page is written against that duty rather than against a compliance checklist.

These are decisions built into the site rather than aspirations for later.

• Contrast was calculated, not eyeballed. Body text sits at 10.7:1 against the page and secondary text at 5.9:1, both well above the 4.5:1 minimum. No text on this site falls below it, and no border that identifies a control falls below 3:1.
• Colour never carries meaning on its own. Every state that matters is also expressed as a word, a shape or an icon.
• Everything works from a keyboard. Focus is always visible, as a two-tone ring designed to be seen on both the light and dark parts of the site. Nothing traps focus, and there’s a skip link to the main content as the first thing you reach.
• Targets are at least 44 by 44 pixels, with space between them, which matters more than it sounds on a phone held in one hand.
• Text resizes. The page reflows to 200% zoom without losing content or requiring sideways scrolling, and body text is set larger than is typical because the typeface has a small x-height.
• Motion is restrained and respects your settings. Three things move on their own: the photographs at the top of the home page, one frame beside the room, and a short silent film on a few inner pages. Each fades slowly rather than sliding, none has sound, and all of them stop while your tab is in the background. There’s no parallax and nothing moves as you scroll. If your device asks for reduced motion, they don’t start at all - the animation is switched off rather than merely shortened, and the film isn’t even downloaded.
• Headings are in order, one per level, so a screen reader can be used to move through a long page by structure instead of reading it end to end.
• Every image has alt text written for the page it sits on, and images that are purely decorative are marked as such so they are skipped rather than announced.
• Form labels are visible and stay visible. No placeholder-only labels, no floating labels that vanish as you type. Errors are described in words next to the field they belong to.
• There are no PDFs. Everything is a web page, including aftercare instructions.

The clinic is at 29 Haven Road, Canford Cliffs, Poole, BH13 7LE. Rather than write a paragraph here that might not answer your particular question, call or email me. Ask about steps, parking, the width of the door, how far it is from where a taxi can stop, whether a quieter time of day is possible, whether someone can come in with you. I’ll go through all of it before you book, not after.

I’d far rather have that conversation than have you arrive and find out.

Known problems, stated plainly:

• The photographs at the top of the home page have no pause button. They change every few seconds and keep going. The guideline says anything that moves by itself for more than five seconds should have a way to stop it, and this doesn’t. It’s the one place the site falls below the standard above, and it’s a deliberate choice about how that page should look rather than an oversight. If your device asks for reduced motion it doesn’t move at all.
• The treatment menus scroll sideways. On the home page each menu is a row you push through rather than a list you scroll down. It works with a keyboard and with a screen reader, and every treatment on it is also reachable from the treatments page as a plain list - which is the better route if sideways scrolling is awkward for you.
• Some photographs are not here yet. Where a photograph of the room or of me will eventually sit, there’s a plain panel with a caption describing what will go there. It’s deliberate, and it’s announced properly to a screen reader. But it’s a gap in the page all the same.
• The booking system isn’t mine. See the next clause.
• The site has not been independently audited. It’s been tested carefully but not by a specialist, so there’ll be things I’ve missed.

If you find something that isn’t on this list, please tell me. A specific report from someone who hit the problem is worth more than another automated scan.

Booking is handled by Jane, a separate product made by another company. I chose it for its clinical record-keeping rather than its interface, and I have no control over how accessible it is.

If you can’t use it, you don’t have to. Call 07525 438309 or email hanaa@theprioryroom.com and I’ll book you in myself. That’s not a fallback. It’s a normal way to book here, and always has been.

Tell me what you were trying to do, what happened, and what you were using: a phone, a screen reader, keyboard only, large text. That’s usually enough for me to find it.

• hanaa@theprioryroom.com
• 07525 438309
• 29 Haven Road, Canford Cliffs, Poole, BH13 7LE

I’ll reply within five working days. If it’s something I can fix quickly, I’ll fix it before I reply. If it needs more work, I’ll say what I’m doing and roughly when.

I can also send anything on this site in large print or by post, or simply read it to you on the phone: prices, aftercare, what a treatment involves. Ask.

Testing so far has been done by the people who built the site, not by an independent auditor:

• keyboard-only navigation through every page and every form;
• zoom to 200% and to 400% on a narrow window, checking that nothing is lost or cut off;
• contrast ratios calculated from the actual colour values rather than judged by eye;
• spot checks with a screen reader on the pages that carry the most content;
• checks with reduced motion turned on, and with the browser’s own larger-text settings.

An independent audit is worth commissioning and is on the list. When it happens, the auditor and the date will be named here.

This statement was prepared on 7 August 2026 and is reviewed whenever the site changes significantly, and at least once a year.

A statement that lists no problems is a statement nobody checked. When the gaps above are closed, this page will say so and something else will probably take their place.