ERDism beta

Accessibility

Updated 2026-10-30

We want everyone on a team to be able to read and change their schema in ERDism, including people who use a keyboard instead of a mouse, a screen reader, zoom, or high-contrast settings.

Our target

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. ERDism partially conforms to that standard: most of the service meets it, and the parts that do not yet are listed below.

What we have done

  • Every screen has one main region, a page title that names the screen, and a "Skip to main content" link as the first thing the Tab key reaches.
  • Closing a dialog or sheet returns keyboard focus to the control that opened it.
  • Notifications are announced to screen readers; failures are announced straight away.
  • Text and control colours were raised to meet the contrast the standard asks for.
  • On the diagram canvas, each table and each relationship line is one stop for the Tab key, and Enter or Space selects it. A table can be moved without dragging: choose "Move to…" from its menu, then click where it should go.
  • Keyboard shortcuts are listed in the editor's shortcut list.

What does not work well yet

  • The diagram itself is visual. A screen reader can reach each table and relationship and read its name, but it cannot convey the layout of the diagram. The same schema can be read as SQL in the SQL panel and in each table's documentation page.
  • Some controls are smaller than 24 by 24 pixels: the close button on tabs at the top of the screen, the column drag handle in the editor, the unpin star on the home screen, and the checkboxes on the Members screen.
  • The diagram tabs at the bottom of the editor put the diagram options button inside the tab, which some screen readers announce poorly.
  • The editor has no top-level heading. The project name is in the tab and the page title.

We are working on these and will update this page when they change.

How we checked

We test ERDism ourselves with the keyboard alone and with the automated checker axe, on the browsers listed in Supported browsers. No outside organisation has audited it yet. This page was last reviewed on 2026-10-30.

Tell us

If something in ERDism gets in your way, or you need content in another form, email [email protected]. Tell us the screen you were on and what you were trying to do. We read every message and reply to it.