Parch

Accessibility

Accessibility is an acceptance criterion in Parch, not a polish phase.

Contrast

  • Body text: ≥ 4.5:1 against its background, in both themes.
  • Large text (≥ 24px or ≥ 19px bold): ≥ 3:1.
  • UI component boundaries and focus indicators: ≥ 3:1.
  • Color never carries meaning alone, pair status colors with icons or labels (a red “Failed” chip also says “Failed”).

Keyboard & focus

  • Every interactive element is reachable with Tab and operable with Enter/Space; focus order follows visual order.
  • Focus is always visible (2px accent ring); never outline: none without a replacement.
  • Dialogs trap focus while open and return it on close.
  • See Keyboard interaction for shortcut conventions.

Screen readers

  • All controls expose name, role, and value through the toolkit's accessibility bridge (GTK: ATK/AT-SPI; Qt: QAccessible).
  • Images that convey information get alt text; decorative images get none.
  • Live regions announce progress completion and toasts; nothing important appears only visually.

Input flexibility

  • Hit targets ≥ 32px with ≥ 8px gaps; 44px on touch-first surfaces.
  • No interaction depends on hover alone or on precise pointing.
  • Respect the system's reduced-motion and reduced-transparency settings.

Testing baseline

  1. Keyboard-only pass of every flow.
  2. Both themes with contrast checked on real content.
  3. Orca (or the platform screen reader) over the primary flows.
  4. 200% font-size scaling without clipping.