Accessibility
What has been built, and what is not yet.
Institut Solène sets out the keyboard, the contrast, the screen reader, and the honest account of the three studios that draw rather than describe.
The keyboard
Every page opens with a skip link: the first thing the Tab key reaches is a way past the navigation and into the content. Every control in the house is reachable and operable from the keyboard, including the studios, the table plans and the handbook, and nothing depends on hovering or on a gesture.
Focus is always visible. Whatever holds it is drawn with a gold outline, so a member moving through a page by keyboard can see where they are. Dialogs and panels close with Escape, focus returns where it was, and no control traps the keyboard inside itself.
Contrast and type
Text in the house is set in ink on a warm paper ground, or in warm white on the deep navy of the public rooms. Gold is kept for rules, labels and small capitals rather than for body text, because gold at body size is a pleasure to look at and a strain to read. Every pairing used for reading is checked against the contrast a person with reduced vision needs.
The layout is built in relative units, so enlarging text in the browser reflows the page instead of clipping it. Nothing is set below eleven pixels, and the smallest type is used only for labels rather than for sentences. Where text sits over a photograph, the photograph carries a veil beneath it so the words stay legible.
Screen readers and structure
Each page carries one first-level heading and an ordered set of headings beneath it, so a reader moving by heading hears the shape of the page. Navigation, the content and the footer are marked as landmarks, and the link that skips to the content is announced first.
Form fields are labelled, and their errors are written in words beside them rather than signalled by colour alone. Icon-only controls carry a name a screen reader can read aloud, decorative marks are hidden from it, and the tables in the studios are given real headers rather than being drawn as pictures.
Print, and large type
The handbook prints as A4 spreads with a running head and numbers, and the studios, the brief, the family year and the letter ledger are all printable, which is the simplest large-type version the house can offer: set the browser’s print scale above 100% and the spread becomes a large-print page.
No page plays sound, no page moves without being asked to, and nothing animates for longer than a single quiet fade. A member who has asked their device for reduced motion is given the page without it.
Where the house is honestly imperfect
Three studios are visual by nature: table geometry, seating precedence and the monogram generator. They draw an arrangement rather than describing one, and a screen reader meets the shape rather than the picture. The written equivalent exists in the table room and in the letter room, and a written description of any arrangement drawn in a studio will be sent on request.
The voices answer in long prose, which is their nature. A member who needs a shorter answer may ask for one plainly, and will get it.
Reporting a barrier
If something in the house cannot be read, reached or used, write to the institute through the support channel attached to the membership, and say three things: the page, what you were trying to do, and the device or assistive technology you were using. A household that holds no membership yet may ask at the threshold, and the message reaches the same desk.
Every report is answered in writing. Where a barrier cannot be repaired quickly, the content is sent in another form so that nobody has to wait for the fix, and the fix follows.
Last reviewed 28 October 2026. A barrier reported to the institute is a fault, and is treated as one.
In one paragraph, for the record
Institut Solène is a private European institute for households, not for individuals. A household writes down the standard it keeps — greeting, table, correspondence, dress, travel, receipt, the year — versions that record over time, and teaches it to the next generation. Membership is annual or one-time, never monthly, and nothing is awarded.