How far the site conforms #
parallelcollective.se partially conforms to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. The shortfalls we know about are listed under Known limitations below, together with the work in progress.
The assessment is a self-assessment carried out by the team that builds the site. No external audit has been done.
How we tested #
Automated checks run with axe-core against the full WCAG 2.2 Level AA rule set. On 23 and 24 August 2026 they covered every published page in all seven language versions, read from the site map of the live site. Beyond the public pages they also covered the signed-in member area (the account pages, sign-in, registration and password reset, checked as a signed-in member at desktop and mobile widths) and the booking flow, including the invitation page and the page where a booking is changed or cancelled. The checks run against the published site, not a local copy, and they run again on every change before it can be published.
Alongside that we walk the booking calendar, the main menu and the forms with the keyboard alone, and we measure a representative set of pages against a window 320 pixels wide, the width the reflow criterion names. Those checks run in Chromium and in WebKit, the engine behind Safari and every browser on iOS.
We have not yet completed a full pass with a screen reader, neither NVDA nor VoiceOver. Automated checks cover part of the standard, not all of it, so there will be barriers nobody has seen yet. A reference group of visitors who use screen readers daily is testing the exhibition audio guide on this site; what they find goes into the list below.
What the site does today #
The following is built and verified:
- Visible focus indicator. Every element reachable by keyboard takes a two-pixel outline with offset, including in the operating system high-contrast mode.
- Skip to content. The first tab stop on every public page is a link that jumps past the menu to the page body.
- Reduced motion. With "reduce motion" enabled in the operating system, animations and page transitions are switched off.
- Right to left. The Arabic version mirrors through logical CSS properties, and each page declares its language and reading direction in the markup. Where a text exists only in English it is marked as English, so a screen reader switches voice instead of reading English in another language.
- Booking by keyboard. The calendar on exhibition pages follows the WAI-ARIA date-grid pattern: arrow keys move between days, Home and End to the start and end of the week, Page Up and Page Down between months. The times on a chosen day are ordinary radio buttons.
- Target sizes. Interactive targets are at least 24 by 24 pixels, and the menu and footer controls sit at 44.
- Scrollable areas reach the keyboard. The climate row in the header, which scrolls sideways on narrow screens, can be reached and scrolled with the keyboard and carries its own name for screen readers.
- No consent dialog. The site sets no tracking cookies, so there is no cookie banner to dismiss before the content is reachable.
Known limitations #
These are the shortfalls we know about and are working on. The list is updated when one is fixed and when a new one is found.
- Long documents appear in English in five language versions. The legal pages are written in Swedish and English. In Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese the English text is shown. It is marked with the correct language in the markup, but a reader who depends on their own language gets English here. This affects all four legal pages in those five language versions.
- Alternative text on uploaded images. Images in exhibitions, artworks and journal posts take their alternative text from the person who uploads them. We review them as we go, but we cannot promise that every image in the archive carries a descriptive text today.
- Parts we do not control. Payment happens on Stripe pages, form protection is Cloudflare Turnstile, and embedded video plays in the YouTube or Vimeo player. We choose suppliers with accessibility in mind, but we cannot correct their interfaces.
Three limitations that stood on this list on 14 August 2026 are fixed and have been taken off it. The page scrolled sideways at 320 pixels wide, the width named in WCAG 2.2 criterion 1.4.10 Reflow: the menu button in the header did not shrink with the rest, and a long word in a headline set the width of the page around it. Two regions on the membership page carried the same name, so a screen reader announced the comparison table twice. And the note that announces an English text sat inside the article as a region of its own instead of reading as part of it. Fixing the first of those uncovered a fourth fault this page had not noticed: the menu button in the header was 20 pixels wide on a phone, not the 44 this page claims for it, because it was the only part of the header that could give way. It is 44 now.
The page now fits 320 pixels on the home page, the exhibitions index, the membership page and the legal pages, in English, Swedish and Arabic, and the automated checks pass on the membership page and on a legal page in a language version that falls back to English. Measured on 15 August 2026, on the build this statement is part of.
One thing on the page is deliberate rather than a defect: the small monospace type in the header HUD, the climate row and a small tag on looping video is an intentional decorative element of the site’s visual signature and not body text meant to be read at length. It is set at 10 pixels, and nothing on the site is set smaller; it carries no information that is not also available at a normal size, and the browser’s zoom is never blocked, so it enlarges together with the rest of the page.
Technologies this statement relies on #
The statement covers HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Pages are built with Astro and delivered as finished HTML where possible, so most of the content is available with JavaScript switched off. The booking calendar and the forms require JavaScript.
Report a barrier #
If something stops you from using the site we want to hear about it. Write to contact@parallelcollective.se and describe what you were trying to do, which page it was, and what went wrong. We reply within five working days and tell you what we can do and when.
If you need content from the site in another form, for example a text read aloud or a document in a different format, ask at the same address.
If our response does not satisfy you #
The Swedish Act on the Accessibility of Digital Public Service (2018:1937) applies to public bodies. Parallel Collective is a private actor and falls outside it, so there is no complaint to DIGG to make in our case.
What does apply to us is the Swedish Discrimination Act (2008:567). Chapter 2, Section 12 prohibits discrimination by anyone who supplies goods and services to the public, and inadequate accessibility counts as a form of discrimination (Chapter 1, Section 4): failing to take reasonable measures so that a person with a disability reaches a comparable situation to others. If you believe we have not taken such measures, you can report us to the Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO), www.do.se.
The Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection handles personal data, not accessibility, and is therefore not the right body for a complaint about a barrier on this site.
How this statement is kept current #
We review the statement at least once a year, and always when a new page template goes live, when a known limitation is fixed, and when a new one is found. The date at the top shows the most recent review.