Visual stories accessibility statement

This statement applies to content published on the domain and directory: https://ec.europa.eu/stories/

This website is managed by the Directorate-General for Communication, European Commission. It is designed to be used by as many people as possible, including persons with disabilities.

You should be able to:

• zoom up to 200% without problems
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using a modern screen reader and speech recognition software (on your computer or phone)

This website is designed to comply with the technical standard for websites and mobile apps, EN 301 549 v.3.2.1. This closely follows level ‘AA’ of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1.

This website is partially compliant with technical standard EN 301 549 v.3.2.1 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. See ‘Non-accessible content’ for more details.

The website was last tested on 30 August 2023.

This statement was prepared on 30 August 2023.

The statement is based on a review of a representative sample of web pages by an IAAP-qualified accessibility expert, using a combination of manual and automated testing.

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of the European Commission website. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers:

• Phone: 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11
• Contact form: Write to us (please refrain from providing sensitive information in the form, e.g. any information that would reveal personal financial information, information related to your health, or any other sensitive topic)

We try to respond to feedback within 15 business days from the date of receipt of the enquiry by the responsible Commission department.

The European Commission website is designed to be compatible with the following assistive technologies

• the latest version of Google Chrome and Apple Safari browsers
• in combination with the latest versions of JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver and TalkBack

The accessibility of the European Commission website relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

• HTML
• WAI-ARIA
• CSS
• JavaScript

Despite our best efforts to ensure the accessibility of the European Commission website, we are aware of some limitations, which we are working to fix. Below is a description of known limitations and potential solutions. Please contact us if you encounter an issue not listed below.

Known limitations for the website:

1. Animation: There are several animations that interfere with the reading of the adjacent content, with no way to stop, pause or hide them.
2. Contrast: Some content is not contrasted enough against its background.
3. Bypassing blocks: Headings and landmarks are not fully properly used, which impacts on their usage to access specific parts of the page and understand the overall content structure with a screen reader.
4. Feedback form: In the feedback form, some radio buttons are not properly grouped and some parts have insufficient contrast. In addition, the Captcha is not accessible to deaf-blind users.
5. Feedback form – error messages: Error messages in the feedback form are not associated with the field in which the error was detected and do not clearly indicate in which field the error was detected. We plan to fix this issue by end October 2023.