Accessibility

Our approach

Biosphere aims to be usable by people with different abilities, devices and ways of browsing — with a mouse, a keyboard, touch, browser zoom or assistive technologies such as screen readers.

Accessibility principles guide how Biosphere is designed and built, and we treat it as ongoing work rather than a finished feature. Biosphere hasn’t been formally audited against an accessibility standard, so this page describes what we have checked ourselves, what still needs work, and how to tell us about a barrier.

Last reviewed
October 14, 2026 — an internal review using automated checks (axe-core, WCAG 2.2 A and AA rules) on 37 pages, including the For Organizations page, Impact Actions and the admin and report pages, plus keyboard testing of the new tabs and forms and reflow testing at 320 px wide. It isn’t an independent audit. (Previous review: October 6, 2026, 27 pages.)

What we checked

Page structure
Each page reviewed has one main heading and one main content area, and the page language is set to English.
Keyboard navigation
Links, buttons and form controls can be reached with Tab and used with Enter or Space. A “Skip to main content” link appears on the first Tab.
Visible focus
A clear outline shows which element has keyboard focus.
Menus and drawers
The cart drawer and the mobile menu move focus inside when opened, keep it there, close with Escape and return focus to the button that opened them.
Forms
Fields have visible labels and errors are shown next to the field and announced. In most forms, focus moves to the first field that needs attention.
Zoom and reflow
Zoom isn’t disabled. Pages reflow to a 320 px-wide screen (about 400% zoom) without sideways scrolling.
Reduced motion
Most animations and smooth scrolling are reduced when your device asks for less motion, and the rotating specimen viewer stops. A few small hover transitions remain.
Colour contrast
Biosphere’s text colours measure between 4.6:1 and 17:1 against its dark backgrounds. Text over photographs and very small labels haven’t been fully checked.
Images
Every image on the pages reviewed has alternative text, or is marked as decorative when the same information is already written next to it.
Screen readers
Components use standard HTML and ARIA labels, but Biosphere hasn’t yet been tested with screen readers such as NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver or TalkBack.

Keyboard navigation & focus

  • Tab and Shift + Tab move between links, buttons and fields; Enter or Space activates them.
  • Escape closes the cart drawer, the mobile menu, search suggestions and dropdowns.
  • In the header search and in dropdowns, the arrow keys move between options and Enter chooses one.
  • On pages with an “On this page” list, choosing a section moves focus to it.
  • The specimen viewer on the Species page pauses while it has keyboard focus, has a pause button, and the arrow keys switch specimens.

Screen readers & assistive technology

Biosphere uses semantic HTML — headings, lists, landmarks, buttons and labelled form fields — and adds accessible names to icon buttons, such as the cart and menu buttons. Search suggestions, form errors, cart updates and confirmations are announced as status messages.

Screen-reader compatibility is an ongoing area of testing and improvement. Formal assistive-technology testing hasn’t been done yet, so we can’t confirm how well specific screen readers work with every part of Biosphere.

Colour, contrast & visual clarity

Biosphere has a dark design. Its main text, secondary text and accent colours (emerald and cyan) were measured against its dark backgrounds, with contrast ratios between 4.6:1 and 17:1.

Information isn’t shown by colour alone in the areas we checked: errors include a message, selected options show a check mark or text, stock levels are written out, and links inside text are underlined.

Reduced motion

If your device is set to reduce motion, Biosphere turns off most animations and smooth scrolling, and the specimen viewer stops rotating between specimens. The rotating specimen viewer can also be paused with its pause button.

Forms

Sign-in, registration, Contact, Feedback, Report an Issue and checkout forms use visible labels, and each error is shown and announced next to its field without losing what you typed. In Contact, Feedback, Report an Issue and checkout, focus also moves to the first field to fix; the sign-in and registration forms don’t do this yet.

Store, cart & checkout

  • Product buttons say which product they add, and quantity controls are labelled with the product name.
  • Stock status is written out (for example “Out of stock”), not shown by colour alone.
  • The cart drawer works as a dialog: focus moves inside, stays there until it is closed, and returns to the cart button.
  • Checkout shows its steps, moves focus to each new step and to the first error, and summarises your order before payment.
  • Card payments, when available, use fields provided by Mercado Pago, which haven’t been tested for accessibility by Biosphere.

Species, habitats & educational content

Species, habitat, Journal, glossary and resource pages use headings, lists and descriptive links, so you can move through them by heading or link. Scientific names are written in full text. Long pages such as the legal policies have an “On this page” list, and external links say that they open in a new tab.

BioQuest

The daily quest uses standard buttons, and its progress bar is labelled (for example “2 of 5 questions answered”). BioQuest has no time limits for answering. The discovery map is labelled, but how well it works with screen readers hasn’t been tested.

Known limitations

These are the areas we know need work. If something else gets in your way, please tell us.

  • Screen readers: not yet tested with real screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack).
  • Text over images: the contrast of text placed over photographs, such as some page headers, hasn’t been measured.
  • Small labels: some small uppercase labels and metadata are hard to read at default size. Browser zoom helps.
  • 3D specimen viewer: rotating and zooming the 3D models needs a mouse or touch. Keyboard users can switch specimens and read their information, but can’t rotate the models.
  • Touch targets: some footer links and links in dense lists have small tap areas on phones.
  • Text-only enlargement: increasing text size without zooming the whole page hasn’t been tested.
  • Third-party payment fields: Mercado Pago’s card fields haven’t been tested by Biosphere.
  • Some hover transitions don’t yet turn off when your device asks for reduced motion.
  • Sign-in and registration forms show errors next to each field but don’t move focus to the first error.

Continuous improvement

Accessibility work continues as Biosphere grows. Planned next steps include testing with screen readers, measuring contrast over images, larger touch targets and keyboard controls for the 3D viewer. These are plans, not features that already exist, and this page will be updated as they are completed.

Found an accessibility barrier?

If something makes Biosphere difficult to use, please let us know. Use Report an Issue with the category Accessibility problem. It helps if you can tell us:

  • Which page you were on, and what you were trying to do.
  • What went wrong.
  • Optionally: your device, browser, and any assistive technology you use (for example a screen reader or magnifier).

You can also contact Biosphere.

Your privacy

Please don’t include passwords, payment details or other sensitive personal information in a report. Read the Privacy Policy to learn how reports are handled.