Accessibility

Our commitment to an accessible website

We’re working toward WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance across aqmauditing.com. If something on this site is hard or impossible to use, we want to hear about it — we’ll fix what we can, and we’ll tell you honestly where we are with the rest.

Last updated:

Our target

We design and build aqmauditing.com against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA as a target standard. WCAG is published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is the most widely adopted accessibility framework for the web.

We treat WCAG 2.1 AA as a baseline, not as a finish line. Real accessibility is an ongoing practice — we revisit it whenever we add a page or a component to the site.

What we’ve built in

Concrete steps we’ve taken in the current site:

  • Semantic structure. Pages use real HTML landmarks (<header>, <nav>, <main>, <section>, <footer>) so screen readers and assistive technologies can navigate page structure.
  • Keyboard navigability. All interactive elements — links, buttons, form fields, expandable FAQ items, tabbed buyer matrices — are reachable and operable by keyboard alone. Focus states are visible on focused elements.
  • Skip-to-content. Every page includes a skip link so keyboard users can bypass the navigation and jump directly to the page’s main content.
  • Color contrast. Body text and headings are tested for at least 4.5:1 contrast against their backgrounds. Buttons and accent elements are tested for at least 3:1 contrast for non-text UI states.
  • Descriptive link and button text. Calls-to-action say what they do (“Get Your Roadmap,” “View Our Certificate”) rather than “click here.” Icon-only controls carry aria-label text.
  • Form labels and validation. Form fields use programmatically associated labels. Required fields are marked. Error messages are announced and tied to the field that produced them.
  • Reduced motion. Animations are subtle by default. Visitors with the prefers-reduced-motion system setting receive a quieter experience.
  • Accessible images. Meaningful images carry descriptive alternative text; decorative images are marked so assistive technologies can skip them.

Known limitations

We’re not perfect, and pretending otherwise wouldn’t help anyone. Things we know are still being improved:

  • PDF documents. Our linked ISO 9001 certificate PDF and any future downloadable documents may not be fully tagged for screen-reader navigation. If you need the certificate information in an alternative format, email us and we’ll send it as accessible text.
  • Embedded third-party content. Where we embed third-party widgets or forms in the future (maps, video, scheduling tools), those embeds may not meet our internal target until we configure or replace them.
  • Older blog posts. As we build out the blog, older posts may use image-based content (charts, screenshots) that lacks full alt-text. We’re working through these as we identify them.

How to report an accessibility barrier

If any part of this site is hard or impossible to use with the assistive technology, browser, or device you’re on — or if there’s content you need in a different format — please tell us:

Please include:

  • The page URL where you ran into the problem.
  • A short description of what happened (what you were trying to do, and what blocked you).
  • The assistive technology, browser, and operating system you’re using, if you know them.

We aim to respond within two business days with an acknowledgment, and to confirm a remediation plan within ten business days. If the fix is straightforward, we’ll often have it deployed before that.

Alternative ways to reach us

If the website itself isn’t usable for you in any form, every conversation with American Quality Management (AQM) can start the same way it always has — by phone. Call (323) 896-1803 during business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific, Monday through Friday) and you’ll reach a person who can help you with whatever you came here to do.

Standards and assessment

We test against WCAG 2.1 AA using a combination of automated tooling, manual keyboard testing, and screen-reader spot checks during page builds. We have not commissioned a formal third-party accessibility audit at the time of this writing — when we do, we’ll note it here with the date and the auditor.

Recent improvements

A running log of accessibility-relevant changes, newest first — because an “ongoing practice” should be checkable:

  • September 2026. Extended descriptive link text into the body copy of every service and industry page — in-content links now name their destination (“auditor training,” “mock audit execution”) rather than generic phrases. Blog posts now display a visible “Updated” date alongside the publish date, marked up with semantic <time> elements so assistive technologies and browsers can read both dates programmatically. The “Last updated” date on this statement is now generated from the page’s actual last-modified time, so it can’t silently drift out of date.

Updates to this statement

We update this statement when the facts change — when we add features, fix known issues, or commission an audit. The “Last updated” date at the top of the page reflects the most recent change.

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