Accessibility

Big Mess o’ Wires should be usable by everyone, including people who use a screen reader, navigate with a keyboard, zoom in, or read on a phone. This page describes what we aim for, what we’ve done, what we know isn’t perfect yet, and how to tell us about a problem.

Our goal

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA, the standard most accessibility laws refer to.

What we’ve done

  • Every page and post was checked with an automated accessibility tester (axe), on desktop and phone screen sizes, and the problems it found were fixed.
  • Images have short text descriptions for screen readers, or are marked as decoration when they add nothing to the text.
  • Pages use real headings, and data tables have header cells, so screen readers can navigate them.
  • Links describe where they go, instead of saying “click here”.
  • Text and links have enough contrast against their background, and links in text are underlined.
  • The site can be used with a keyboard alone: a “Skip to content” link comes first, and the keyboard focus is always visible.
  • Pages fit phone screens and zoomed-in browsers without sideways scrolling; wide tables scroll in their own box.
  • Video play buttons are labelled with the video’s title.

Known limitations

  • Automated testing can’t find every problem, and this site has almost 20 years of posts. Older posts may still have problems we haven’t found.
  • Schematics, screenshots and diagrams have short descriptions, not full transcriptions of the text or circuits they show.
  • PDF documents, such as product manuals, haven’t been checked for accessibility.
  • Videos are hosted on YouTube; captions are whatever YouTube provides.
  • The BMOW store is a separate site run on a different platform, and isn’t covered by this page.

Tell us about a problem

If something on this site is hard or impossible for you to use, please email wkt@bigmessowires.com (see also the Contact page). Tell us which page and what went wrong, and what you use to browse if it’s relevant (for example a screen reader or zoom). We’ll do our best to fix it, or to get you the information another way.

Last reviewed: October 2026.