Accessibility Statement

We are committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We are continually improving the user experience for everyone and regularly applying relevant accessibility standards and best practices.

Conformance status

TheWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.

We have installed an automatic accessibility tool that runs in the background. This tool uses AI and machine learning to correct accessibility deficiencies in the HTML code. Additionally, it provides an interface that allows visitors to manipulate their browsing experience. The complete suite of tools aims to help this site conform as closely as possible to theWCAG 2.1 Level AA standards.

Additional accessibility considerations

While our goal is WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance, we have also applied some AAA-level success criteria: text images are used for decorative purposes only. Some WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements are not included in the remediation process as they fall outside the scope of the website’s source code, including video captions.

Measures taken by this website to comply with regulations

Full WCAG 2.1 Level AA website audit and correction upon page load. All page elements are scanned and compared against our accessibility standards library to ensure compliance. If a correction is needed, the element is flagged, and our AI remediation tool performs the necessary non-invasive, client-side corrections to the site.
Automatic recognition of images and links and correction of content that does not contain alternative or title text for users who need access to screen readers; descriptions are stored so that the user can adjust them and help our machine learning algorithms.
Quick access to search the Meriam website for definitions and pronunciations of words.
Color blindness settings to improve distinction between colors for red-green color blindness (Deuteranomaly, Protanomaly, Protanopia, Deuteranopia), blue-yellow color blindness (Tritanopia, Tritanomaly), other color blindness (Achromatopsia, Achromatopsia).
Reset fonts to Arial or implement a dyslexia-friendly font.
Ability to highlight headings and links.
Text enlargement.
Content, font, line height, line spacing scaling, and zoom.
Content alignment including left, center, and right.
Dark and light contrast modes and high contrast that increases the contrast ratio to 135%, and full color inversion.
Saturation settings including High (140% saturation), Low (90% saturation), Monochrome (0% saturation).
Full control of element colors, including heading, font, and background color settings with safe color palettes to ensure an optimal contrast ratio of 4.5%.
Ability to stop motion (videos, animated graphics, web element transitions, etc.), hide all images, and mute sounds.
Simple reading guide or more elaborate page mask to help users focus on page content.
Highlight element on hover or focus to ensure that both keyboard and mouse users can navigate the focused element.
Screen reader that reads page content when highlighted.
Full keyboard navigation control.
Settings added in browsing profiles to quickly deploy accessibility settings for multiple user types.

Browser and Assistive Technology Compatibility

We strive to be compatible with the following assistive technologies:

Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), for both Windows and MAC users.

Technical Specifications

The accessibility of this site relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

HTML
WAI-ARIA
CSS
JavaScript

These technologies are based on conformance with the accessibility standards used.

Notes

While our primary goal is for the entire site to be accessible to all users, there is a possibility that some pages have not been discovered or do not currently have a satisfactory accessibility remediation solution. We are committed to constantly improving the accessibility of this site to ensure it is accessible to everyone.