The site
Accessibility
What we check, how often, and what we know is not right yet. This is not a claim that the site meets an accessibility standard: automated checks find only some problems, and nobody has yet gone through the whole site with a screen reader or other assistive technology. If something gets in your way, tell us and we will work on it.
What is checked, every Monday
A set of automated checks runs against the site every Monday, on 35 pages chosen to cover the site's main page shapes, from the homepage to a full transcript, at 1440, 820 and 390 pixels wide: a laptop, a tablet and a phone. The most recent run was on October 12, 2026.
- Accessibility rules. The axe-core checker's WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 level A and AA rules, and its best-practice rules, on every page at every width.
- Room to tap. Every link and button in the header and footer is at least 44 by 44 pixels at phone width (390 pixels).
- Nothing jumps or runs off the side. No page scrolls sideways at any of those widths, and none scores over 0.1 for layout shift as it loads, which is Google's own limit for text moving out from under you.
- Narrow screens. Four pages (Be a guest, Sponsor, Contact and an episode page) are loaded 320 pixels wide, the width a browser zoomed to 400% on a 1280-pixel screen reports. None may scroll sideways, and none may score over 0.05 for layout shift.
- Coming back. For a listener the player remembers, the three pages that show where you left off (the homepage, the episode list and an episode page) may not score over 0.01 for layout shift.
- Without JavaScript. Ten pages are loaded with the script turned off, covering every form that sends something to the show, both maps and an episode page. Each of those forms still sends what you typed, and at least 90% of each page's text is there.
- Reduced motion. With your device set to reduce motion, nothing is left animating: checked on the five pages that move most, and in every stylesheet.
And on every change to the site's code, every page is checked for valid HTML, so headings, lists and form fields reach a screen reader as what they are.
Motion
At most once a visit, a page opens with a short animation of the show's name, and moving into a new part of the site plays a shorter one, never more than three in a visit. Your device's reduce-motion setting turns these off along with the fade between pages, and so does this switch, which affects only those.
What we know is not right yet
- Episodes 7 and 8 have transcripts without timestamps, so a line of those transcripts, or a search result in them, cannot take you to its minute of the audio. Episode 7's transcript does not say who is speaking.
- Every transcript is made automatically from the audio and has mistakes in it, misheard words and misspelled names among them. The episode itself is the record.
- The founder map needs JavaScript. Every guest on it is also in the city lists on the same page, which do not.
- Search and Ask the archive need JavaScript. The moments index and the episode list do not.
- The video tab on an episode page needs JavaScript and loads YouTube's own player, with captions switched on where YouTube has made them. Those captions are automatic and we have not checked them. The audio player plays with or without a script.
Tell us
If something on this site is hard to use, or does not work with the way you browse, tell us which page and what happened. The contact form reaches the show inbox, and so does nwafounders@gmail.com. Somebody reads what arrives, usually within a week.
Found something the checks missed? Get in touch →