Accessibility
How this site is made to be heard.
What prometheus.is does so that everyone can hear it, read it and find their way through it, what it does not do yet, and how to report a gap. Facts about this site only.
Captions
- Every voiced line of the ritual is an open caption: its words are on the screen whether the sound is on or off. The 22 lines are spoken by two voices, the Order and the Narrator; the Order’s lines are set in capitals so you can tell who speaks.
- Sounds are captioned too, in brackets, like [the monument cracks and falls].
- The Narrator’s lines and the sounds are set in Atkinson Hyperlegible Next, a typeface drawn for readers with low vision; the Order speaks in tall civic capitals, and each island’s line of myth in an italic.
- The whole ritual can be read as text, in order: the Stolen Fire, as text. It is built from the same lines the ritual uses, and a test fails the site’s build if a recording has no words, if a voiced line has no text, or if the text page falls behind.
Sound
- The landing page and the study make no sound. Sound plays only in the ritual, after you start it.
- The switch beside “I’m ready” says whether the ritual starts with its sound on; it is on unless you turn it off, and this browser remembers your choice. Inside the ritual, the Sound switch at the bottom turns it on or off at any time.
- If your device keeps the sound from playing, a caption says so: “Sound is off on this device; captions are on.”
Screen readers
- Each of the ritual’s three chambers has a written description of what is on the screen and how to move through it.
- Every line is also read out through a polite live region; the Order’s lines are read in ordinary sentence case, not spelled out as capitals.
- The three questions are kept as they rise, one after another; none replaces the last.
- A way out is always on screen during the ritual: “Back to the gathering” while a gathering is announced, “Back to the study” between gatherings.
Keyboard
- The ritual can be done without a mouse. Space or Enter takes the torch; the arrow keys choose between “Put it back.” and “Keep the torch.”; the arrow keys move the torch, and Space lets it burn the next decree.
- In the cave, the arrow keys move the flame, and Space or Enter guides it.
- On the islands, the arrow keys walk the paths, or Tab reaches each island’s name and Enter walks there. Escape leaves the Theater of Worlds.
- In the study, every island on the map and every object on the desk is a button, in Tab order; the arrow keys move between them, and Escape lets go of the one chosen.
Motion
- If your device asks for reduced motion, the ritual plays as stills: the monument’s fall is a cut to the fallen monument with its caption, the torch’s white flash is a soft fade, and the fire’s flights between the islands happen at once. The banner’s embers and flame stand still, and the study’s parallax and candlelight stop.
- With reduced motion, a link into the ritual opens the front page first (the gathering, or the study); the ritual starts only when you choose “I’m ready”.
Contrast and size
- On the landing, the study and the reading pages, every visible line of text reaches a contrast of at least 4.5 to 1 against what lies behind it (checked line by line); the reading pages, this one included, are navy ink on a warm white, about 13 to 1. In the ritual, captions sit on their own dark band.
- On a phone, the buttons and links of the landing and the study are at least 44 pixels tall; links inside running text are not.
- Every image that carries meaning has a text alternative; a test fails the build if an image on a public page has none.
Known gaps
- The ritual is drawn on a canvas: a screen reader gets each chamber’s written description and every line, not the picture itself.
- The covers of past gatherings are named, not described (“Cover art for The House of Eros”).
- On the essays’ pages (/thought/) and the gathering’s page, the small links at the top and the bottom (the site’s name, the way back) are less than 44 pixels tall.
- Mythos (/myth/) and Through the River of Life (/art/egypt/) are separate sites shown at these addresses, and invitations open on Partiful; this page does not cover them.
Tell us
If something here does not work for you, or a claim on this page is not true for you, write to hello@prometheus.is. Say what you were doing and what you use (a screen reader, a phone, the keyboard).
Privacy
Hear first. “Notify me of next events” opens a short form on this site: your email, the reasons you tick and a note if you write one. They are kept in Kit, the mailing-list service, not on this site, and every email has a link to unsubscribe.
The ritual remembers your progress (the fires you lit, the sound switch) in this browser’s own storage, on your device.