September 2026 Updates

Body piercing pages: image alternatives, headings, and link names

Our Piercers portraits and heading structure

Accessibility work on /our-piercers during the staff update that removed Eddie Zvolanek:

Success Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A): Piercer photographs had no text alternative. Each remaining portrait now has a descriptive alt that names the person and their role. Decorative fallback icons are marked aria-hidden="true" so assistive technology can ignore them.
Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A): Piercer names were h3 while a later certifications heading was h2, so the heading outline did not match the presented section structure. Names are now h2 section headings under the page h1.
Success Criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) and Success Criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A): Shane Shields' Facebook control is an icon-only link. It now has an accessible name via aria-label so the purpose can be determined without relying on a tooltip.

Work on /piercing:

Success Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A): The hero photograph used alt="test", which does not serve an equivalent purpose. It is a decorative background behind the heading, so it now uses an empty alt and role="presentation". The APP membership mark now has a descriptive alternative: "Association of Professional Piercers member logo".
Best practice: removed a second id="main-content" on the studio section so the layout skip link has a single target. In-page skip links to piercing types and the gallery remain.

Automated: static source review of the piercing templates, plus an axe-core scan of the built piercing pages when the local build was available.
Manual: keyboard pass on Our Piercers and the piercing studio page (tab order, skip link, focus on the Facebook control).
Each finding above was checked against the WCAG 2.2 Understanding pages linked in this entry before it was logged or fixed.