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Accessibility

Accessibility is not a feature we bolt on — it is how we build. Every restaurant website on Remi is built to WCAG 2.2 Level AA and monitored nightly, and we hold ourselves to the same standard.

Our commitment

Remi believes the web should be usable by everyone. We design and build every page — both this marketing site and the restaurant websites we power — to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users, including people who rely on assistive technology.

We target conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This is the standard referenced by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 508, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

What we do on this site

  • Semantic HTML throughout — headings, landmarks, lists, and links used correctly so assistive technology can navigate the page structure.
  • All text meets WCAG 2.2 contrast ratios: minimum 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and UI components.
  • Keyboard navigation works across the entire site. Focus indicators are visible on all interactive elements.
  • All images include descriptive alt text. Decorative images are marked with empty alt attributes so screen readers skip them.
  • No information is conveyed by color alone. Status indicators, dietary labels, and interactive states use text, shape, or position in addition to color.
  • The site works at 200% browser zoom without loss of content or functionality.
  • No auto-playing media, no flashing content, no time-limited interactions.

What we build for every restaurant

Every restaurant website built on Remi includes these accessibility features by default. They cannot be turned off.

  • Skip-to-content link on every page, visible on keyboard focus, allowing users to bypass navigation.
  • Alt text enforced at the database level. Photos cannot be uploaded without descriptive alt text. This is a hard constraint, not a suggestion.
  • Contrast-safe text over images. Hero sections use gradient overlays and CSS text shadows to keep text readable over any background image.
  • Accessible booking forms. Every form field has a visible label (not placeholder-only). Required fields are marked. Error messages identify the problem and suggest a fix. Form state is preserved on error.
  • Dietary information uses text and color. Menu items show dietary flags (V, VG, GF, DF) with both colored badges and full-text labels, so meaning is never color-dependent.
  • ARIA landmarks and heading hierarchy. Every page uses proper semantic structure: nav, main, article, section, figure. Screen readers can navigate by heading level.
  • Keyboard-operable interactions. Every button, link, and form control is reachable and operable via keyboard. No mouse-only interactions.
  • Responsive at all zoom levels. Sites reflow correctly at 200% zoom. Touch targets meet the 44x44px minimum.
  • Dedicated accessibility page. Every restaurant site includes a public accessibility statement with contact information for reporting barriers.

The standard we build to

Accessibility is increasingly an expectation, not just good practice. WCAG 2.2 AA is the benchmark that regulators point to around the world — the ADA and Section 508 in the United States, the European Accessibility Act (EN 301 549) in the EU, and the AODA in Canada. Building to it is simply how you welcome every guest.

Every site we build is built to WCAG 2.2 AA out of the box and kept there with nightly scans — no consultant, no bolt-on widget, no scramble. Accessibility is built in, not pasted on. This page is industry context, not legal advice.

Why photo descriptions are required

Every photo on your Remi website needs a caption of at least 30 characters. This caption is shown to all visitors and read aloud by screen readers. WCAG Success Criterion 1.1.1 requires meaningful text alternatives for all images — a missing or vague description like "food" or "interior" is a violation.

Describe what a person would see. Be specific: "A seared salmon fillet on a bed of lentils with herb butter, served on a white plate" — not "food photo." The 30-character minimum ensures every photo is genuinely accessible.

Bad
Good
"Food"
"A seared salmon fillet on a bed of lentils with herb butter"
"Interior"
"The dining room at evening service with candlelit tables and exposed brick"
"IMG_4392.jpg"
"A glass of red wine on a white tablecloth with soft candlelight"

How we test

  • Automated scanning with axe-core on every theme and page type.
  • Manual testing with VoiceOver (macOS/iOS) and NVDA (Windows).
  • Keyboard-only navigation testing across all flows (browse, book, contact).
  • Color contrast verification with WCAG contrast checker tools.
  • Responsive testing at 200% zoom on desktop and mobile viewports.

When guests can’t use your site, they don’t complain — they leave

You never see this customer. They land on your site, hit something they can’t get past, and quietly leave for the restaurant down the block — no email, no phone call, no bad review. About 1 in 4 U.S. adults CDC has a disability, and you don’t need one to hit the same walls — a bright patio, a cracked phone screen, ordering one-handed. The common barriers:

  • A menu that’s a picture or PDF — unzoomable, unreadable aloud, unsearchable on a phone.
  • A booking form that fights them — labels vanish as they type, errors with no reason, buttons too small to tap.
  • Text too faint or too small to read in the sun, on an older phone, or with tired eyes.
  • Mouse-only interactions that do nothing on the touchscreen most guests use.

The plain-language guide walks through every barrier — what it is, and exactly who it turns away.

ADA and your website, without the scare tactics

The ADA requires places that serve the public to be accessible, and U.S. courts and the Department of Justice now treat a business’s website as part of that. There’s no separate “website law” — regulators point to one technical standard: WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Lawsuits and demand letters over sites that can’t be used with a screen reader have become common; small businesses, restaurants among them, are frequent targets.

What helps is a site that’s accessible at the source— built to WCAG 2.2 AA and kept there. What doesn’t help is a bolt-on “accessibility” overlay widget; those sit on top of code that’s still broken and have themselves been named in accessibility lawsuits.

No one can promise you’ll never receive a complaint or a lawsuit — and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. What we can honestly offer: we build your site to WCAG 2.2 AA from the start, scan it nightly, and give you an editor that can’t reintroduce the common violations. That’s the standard these complaints are measured against — met at the source and kept there.

General industry context, not legal advice.

Report a barrier

If you encounter an accessibility barrier on this site or any restaurant site powered by Remi, we want to know. We take every report seriously and will work to resolve issues promptly.

Email: support@itsremi.app

Last updated: 2026