Accessibility at gowrite

gowrite is built for every writer. Accessibility is a foundation, not an afterthought — and the editor itself adapts to the way you read and think, not the other way round.

Our standard: WCAG 2.2 AA

gowrite is built to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA — the internationally recognised benchmark for web accessibility, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This is the standard most governments and organisations reference when they talk about making websites accessible.

In practical terms that means the site works well for people who navigate with keyboards, use screen readers, have low vision or colour blindness, experience motion sensitivity, have motor impairments that affect touch and pointing devices, or who simply want a calmer interface.

How we support different needs

Dyslexia

The editor offers OpenDyslexic as a built-in font option — a typeface designed with weighted bottoms on letters to reduce mirroring and crowding. Pick it from the font switcher in the editor toolbar; your choice is remembered for next time. Generous line height (2.1), letter spacing and word spacing are tuned automatically when OpenDyslexic is selected. The default serif and clean sans-serif options are also available, in case OpenDyslexic isn't your preference.

ADHD and attention differences

Focus mode strips the editor down to just your words — no sidebar, no menus, no notifications. The AI assist is opt-in: it never auto-suggests, never auto-rewrites, and it only acts when you select text and ask it to. Autosave runs quietly in the background, so a moment of distraction doesn't lose your work. Word counts and progress indicators are present but understated — there to support, not to nag.

Autism and sensory sensitivity

gowrite avoids surprises. There's no auto-playing video, no scroll-jacking, no cookie banner pop-ups, no AI that interjects without being asked. The interface is consistent across pages, the AI panel always opens in the same place, and destructive actions (deleting a manuscript or chapter) always ask first with a clear confirmation dialog.

Low vision

All text meets a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 against its background in both light and dark themes. Interactive elements like buttons and form controls meet the 3:1 minimum for non-text components. The editor uses scalable units (rem) so browser zoom up to 200% works without horizontal scrolling. Dark mode reduces eye strain for light-sensitive users and persists across the entire site.

Colour blindness

We never rely on colour alone to convey meaning. Errors carry an icon and a text label as well as red; success states say “Sent” or “Saved” rather than just turning green; the AI suggestion panel uses position and typography to distinguish “original” from “suggestion”, not hue. Our brand coral and the focus-ring blue have been picked to be distinguishable across the most common forms of colour deficiency.

Motor impairments

Buttons and interactive controls are sized for comfortable use on touch devices, meeting the WCAG minimum of 24×24 CSS pixels. Keyboard shortcuts are available for every common editor action. Form fields support browser and password-manager autofill, so you don't need to retype your details on every visit.

Keyboard and screen-reader users

Every feature on gowrite can be reached and operated with a keyboard alone. A skip-to-content link lets you jump past navigation. A visible focus ring shows where you are. Tooltips, dropdowns and modal dialogs all respond to keyboard focus, not just the mouse. Pressing Escape closes any open dialog and returns focus to the control that opened it. Interactive elements carry descriptive labels, dialogs announce themselves as alertdialog with proper ARIA attributes, error and success messages are announced via live regions, and decorative icons are hidden from assistive technology so they don't add noise. We design with VoiceOver, NVDA, and JAWS in mind.

Motion sensitivity

If your operating system is set to prefer reduced motion, gowrite disables animations, transitions, and the bouncing loading indicators automatically — including the AI panel slide-in and any micro-interactions. No setting required, it follows your system preference.

Language and locale

The locale switcher always lists each language in its own script — “Español”, “Français”, “हिन्दी” — so you can find your language without needing to read the current one first. Each option is tagged with the appropriate language attribute so screen readers pronounce native names correctly. Translations beyond English are rolling out through 2026.

What changed in May 2026

We commissioned a full accessibility audit of the codebase and shipped the resulting fixes the same week. Highlights:

• Tooltips now appear on keyboard focus, not only on hover — so keyboard users see the same help text mouse users get.
• Confirmation dialogs (deleting a manuscript or chapter) now use proper alertdialog semantics, move focus into the dialog on open, and dismiss on Escape.
• Login and signup forms now support browser and password-manager autofill on every field, and announce errors via live regions to screen readers.
• The reduced-motion media query was tightened to also disable Tailwind's bounce, pulse and spin animations, which previously slipped through.
• The locale switcher now announces native names with the correct language attribute.
• Delete actions on manuscripts are visible to keyboard users via focus-within, not just on mouse hover.

Continuous improvement

Accessibility is ongoing work, not a checkbox. We regularly test with assistive technologies, review new features against WCAG criteria before release, and welcome feedback from users about their experience.

If you encounter any accessibility barrier on gowrite, or have suggestions for improvement, please get in touch. We take every report seriously and aim to resolve issues promptly.

Last updated: 2 May 2026