Accessibility Statement

RinkWire is an independent California youth hockey data layer. Hockey families are the whole audience, and that includes parents, players, coaches, and grandparents who use screen readers, navigate by keyboard, rely on zoom, or need higher contrast. This page states plainly where we stand, what we have fixed, what is still imperfect, and how to tell us when something does not work.

Conformance status

RinkWire targets WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We consider the site and the mobile app partially conformant, which means most of the standard is met but we have not yet verified every part of it with real assistive technology in the hands of the people who depend on it. We would rather say that than claim more than we can prove.

What we fixed (July 12, 2026)

A full accessibility pass was completed across both the public website and the RinkWire mobile app. It covered:

• Keyboard operation. Game cards, team rows, and standings rows were previously clickable with a mouse or a finger but could not be reached or activated with a keyboard at all. They are now focusable and operable, and open the same screens they always did.
• Visible focus. Every interactive element now shows a clear focus indicator, so keyboard users can see where they are. Several controls previously suppressed it entirely.
• Screen reader output. Team crests are decorative badges that painted club initials as text, so rows were being read aloud as "A A Aliso Viejo Avalanche". Crests are now correctly hidden from assistive technology, and rows announce as the team name.
• Bottom sheets in the app. The team sheet and division picker were marked hidden from assistive technology even while open, which made them unreadable to screen reader users. They are now exposed when open and inert when closed.
• Zoom. The mobile app previously blocked pinch-to-zoom. Zoom is now enabled, and text fields were enlarged so that enabling it does not cause unwanted zooming when you tap a search box.
• Colour contrast. Text, status labels, and filter controls that fell below the AA contrast threshold were corrected.
• Form labels. Filter dropdowns and search fields that had no accessible name now have one.
• Reduced motion. If your device asks for reduced motion, RinkWire now honours it.

How we tested

Automated testing with axe-core 4.10.2 against WCAG 2.0/2.1 Levels A and AA, run in a real browser on every major screen of the site and on every tab of the mobile app, plus manual keyboard navigation testing. All screens tested return zero automated violations.

We want to be straight about the limits of that: automated tools catch roughly a third of accessibility problems. A clean automated result is a floor, not a finish line.

Known limitations

We would rather list these than pretend they do not exist:

• We have not yet completed a full session with a live screen reader (VoiceOver, NVDA, or JAWS) driven by someone who uses one daily. We have verified the accessibility information programmatically, which is a strong signal but not the same thing. This is our next step.
• Third-party components. The email signup form and partner content are provided by outside services, and we do not control their markup. If one of them blocks you, tell us and we will chase the vendor or replace the component.
• Source data. Team, player, and rink names come from league sources exactly as the leagues publish them. Where a league publishes something inconsistently, that inconsistency can reach our pages.

Report a barrier

Our commitment

Accessibility is not a one-time project here. We re-run our accessibility checks when we ship changes, and we treat a reported barrier as a bug, not a feature request. If we get something wrong, we would rather hear it from you than not know.

Formal approach

This statement follows the structure recommended by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. It applies to rinkwire.app and to the RinkWire mobile app. It was last reviewed on July 12, 2026 and is reviewed whenever we make significant changes to the product.