Built in. Not bolted on.

Reaching the practice without a phone call

This is the accessibility feature that matters most here and it has nothing to do with the website’s code.

A large share of the people who need an audiologist find telephone calls difficult — that is very often the reason they are looking for one. A hearing practice whose only front door is a phone number has put a barrier in front of exactly the people it exists to serve, and asking those people to make a call in order to ask for help with not being able to make calls is a genuinely poor arrangement.

So there are three routes in, and none of them is the lesser one:

• Call. (508) 627-0565 reaches Dr. Loschen directly. No switchboard, no menu tree, no outside answering service.
• Write. The appointment request form goes straight to her. She replies by email or text, whichever you ask for, usually within one business day.
• Type. The front desk panel at the bottom of any page answers questions immediately and can pass a request on without you ever speaking to anyone.

If you would rather not be phoned back, say so on the form. Nobody will find that an odd request.

Why there is no accessibility widget on this site

You have probably seen the little circular button that opens a panel of toggles — bigger text, invert colours, “screen reader mode.” Those are third-party overlays, and a great many healthcare websites carry one as evidence of compliance.

They are not used here. Overlays work by loading a script over a site that has not itself been made accessible and attempting to patch it in the browser. In practice they frequently interfere with the assistive technology a visitor already uses and has already configured to their liking, and hundreds of accessibility practitioners and screen-reader users have publicly asked website owners not to deploy them. A toggle panel is also not a defence: it does not make a page with no headings navigable, and it cannot supply alt text that was never written.

The alternative is slower and it is the one taken here: build the page properly, and check it. What this site has instead is a Display settings control in the bottom-left corner offering larger text and higher contrast. It is first-party, it adjusts this site’s own design rather than injecting a layer over it, it makes no accessibility claim, and everything on the page conforms with it switched off. It is a comfort setting, not a remedy — and your browser’s own zoom and text-size settings work here too, and work everywhere else you browse.

What was actually done

This site targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Specifically:

Reading and seeing

• Body text is set at 18px rather than the usual 16px, and everything is sized in relative units, so your browser’s own text-size setting scales the whole page.
• Text reflows to 200% zoom without content being cut off or requiring horizontal scrolling.
• Every text and background pair on the site is checked against the AA contrast thresholds by a script that runs before release. The accent colours are deliberately never used for small text on light backgrounds, because they do not pass there.
• Nothing is communicated by colour alone. Selected states carry a weight or fill change as well, form errors carry a message as well as a border, and links in body text are always underlined.
• The site is legible in Windows High Contrast and forced-colours modes.

Keyboard and screen reader

• Everything is operable by keyboard alone, in an order that matches the visual order.
• The focus indicator is never removed and never faint. It is a solid ring designed to stay visible on white, on navy, and on top of a photograph.
• Two skip links: one to the main content, one straight to the phone number.
• Proper landmarks and a correct heading order on every page, with a single H1.
• Menus and the front desk panel close on Escape and hand focus back to the control that opened them.
• Every image has alternative text that describes what is in it, and decorative images are correctly hidden from screen readers rather than announced as filenames.

Motion, touch and forms

• All animation is disabled for anyone whose system asks for reduced motion. Nothing moves on its own, nothing auto-plays, and nothing flashes.
• Every interactive target is at least 44 by 44 pixels — larger than WCAG 2.2 requires, because a good share of this practice’s patients have arthritis or tremor.
• Every form field has a real, visible label. Placeholders are never used in place of one.
• Form fields carry autocomplete attributes, so browser and password manager autofill works and you do not have to type your phone number by hand.
• Errors are listed in one summary that receives focus, and each is tied to its field so a screen reader announces it.
• The site works without JavaScript. Interactive sections fall back to plain text and real links rather than disappearing.

Getting into the office

• Island Hearing Services is at 10 State Road, Unit 3, Vineyard Haven, on one level.
• Parking is on site, in the complex, including accessible spaces.
• In the business complex that shares a driveway with Knit Works, next to the old EduComp building.
• If you need something arranged in advance — help getting in, a companion in the room, extra time, a written summary of your results to take away — ask when you book. It is not a special request.

Where this falls short

An honest statement should say what is not done yet, so: this site is published in English only. Census figures put roughly one in eleven Martha’s Vineyard residents as speaking English less than well, and translated pages are the clearest next improvement available. If you would find that useful, saying so moves it up the list.

Third-party pages linked from this site — the patient booking portal, map services — are outside the practice’s control and have not been audited.

Tell the practice if something does not work

If any part of this site or of visiting the office is difficult, that is worth reporting and it will be fixed. Call (508) 627-0565 or send a message. You do not need to know the technical term for the problem.