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JANUSOBSERVATORY

Accessibility · WCAG 2.2 AA target

The argument does not depend on animation.

Controls, nonvisual equivalents, motion behavior, and current limitations.

Story controls

  • The complete narrative and source tables remain available in document order. Use the Atlas for the scientific content outside the animated journey.
  • When a story section has focus, Arrow Up/Down or Page Up/Down moves between chapters. Escape closes the Index.
  • “Skip story” opens the Atlas. The Index opens direct navigation to every chapter.
  • The Index’s “First light” returns to the beginning.

Reduced motion and WebGL

The homepage runs in full motion, including when the system requests reduced motion. Research pages respect your saved preference. Change it with the System, Reduced, and Full controls on this page. The Atlas provides the scenario content outside the animated story.

The story does not display a temporary image while the 3D scene starts. If WebGL cannot start, all narrative, controls, values, citations, and data tables remain available as semantic HTML.

Structured alternatives

The story stage exposes a concise live description. The Observatory’s “Open data view” control reveals the five-method result table. Scenario and instrument controls use native buttons with pressed state; meaning is never carried by color alone.

Interactive surfaces and their structured equivalents
SurfaceKeyboard / touch controlNonvisual equivalentShare state
StoryNative scroll, Begin/Skip links, Index and arrow-key chapter navigationSemantic narrative, live state description, scenario lists and source tablesNamed chapter and handoff links
ObservatoryPressed-state scenario and instrument buttonsCategorical result prose and five-method tablescenario, instrument, and data-view query parameters
AtlasCompare toggles, analytical-lens buttons, native table scrollingAligned tables, exact source locators, versioned JSON/CSVcompare and lens query parameters

Zoom, focus, and overflow

Focus indicators remain visible against light and dark surfaces. Wide scientific tables sit in keyboard-focusable horizontal scrollers instead of shrinking text. At narrow widths, editorial rows reflow vertically and navigation remains horizontally reachable.