Accessibility Features

This page summarizes the accessibility features built into the Accessible Notes app itself — the editor, navigation, and supporting screens you use day to day. For information about the accessibility of the documents you export, see Our Approach. For the formal Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 conformance report, see the VPAT.

Keyboard support

Every interactive control in the app can be operated from the keyboard alone — no pointer required. That includes buttons, menus, form fields, the figure metadata editor, the list reorder control, and dialog windows.

• Tab / Shift+Tab — move focus between controls in the order they appear on the page.
• Enter / Space — activate the focused button, link, or checkbox.
• Arrow keys — move within composite widgets such as the figure editor and the reorder list.
• Escape — close the open dialog and return focus to the control that opened it.
• A skip link appears as the first focusable element on every page, letting keyboard users jump straight to the main content past the navigation.

The app does not define any single-character keyboard shortcuts that would compete with assistive-technology shortcuts; all command-style shortcuts use a modifier key.

Visible focus indicators

When you Tab through the page, the control that has focus is outlined with a high-contrast ring so you can see exactly where you are. This works in both the light and dark themes.

Screen-reader semantics

The interface uses native HTML semantics throughout:

• Landmark regions — the navigation, main content, and sidebar are wrapped in <nav>, <main>, and <aside> so that screen-reader users can jump between regions with a single keystroke.
• Form labels — every input is associated with a visible label, and validation errors are announced through ARIA live regions when they appear.
• Dialog roles — modal dialogs use role="dialog" with a labelled title, focus moves into the dialog on open, and focus returns to the invoking control on close.
• Status updates — long-running tasks (transcription, export rendering) post their progress to a polite live region so screen readers announce progress without interrupting whatever the user is doing.

Decorative icons are hidden from assistive technology with aria-hidden, so screen readers don't announce a UI flourish as if it were a separate element.

Authoring prompts for accessibility

The editor surfaces accessibility prompts at the points where they matter:

• Alt text is a required field in the figure editor. You can't save a figure without describing it, so exports never silently lose alt text at the figure level.
• The audit panel in the editor sidebar lists figures that still need attention and document-level structural issues (missing top-level heading, untitled note, etc.) with actionable remediation guidance.
• Heading-level prompts appear when you create headings that would skip a level.

This authoring-side enforcement is what lets the export pipeline produce tagged PDF/UA-1, accessible DOCX, and semantic HTML by default.

Themes and contrast

Both the light and dark themes use a curated palette in OKLCH (a perceptually-uniform color space) with body text, brand text, and error states tuned to meet the 4.5:1 minimum contrast ratio for normal text required by WCAG 2.1 AA.

You can switch themes from the user menu in the top right. The choice is saved per user.

Dyslexic-friendly font

Each note has its own Dyslexic-friendly font toggle that switches the live preview and PDF/HTML exports to OpenDyslexic.

Resize and reflow

All app text is sized in relative units, and layout containers reflow at narrow viewports:

• Browser zoom up to 200% — content stays readable without horizontal scrolling.
• 320 CSS-pixel viewport — the layout collapses to a single column with no two-dimensional scrolling.

This means the app works on small screens, on a desktop with the browser zoomed in, and on a screen with the operating-system display scale increased.

Document export accessibility

Documents you export carry their accessibility metadata with them:

• PDF — tagged structure with PDF/UA-1 conformance metadata, embedded fonts, alt text on figures, and a declared document language. See PDF Export.
• Word (DOCX) — headings use Word's built-in heading styles, figures carry alt text on the image object, and the document language is set in the file metadata.
• HTML — semantic HTML5 with ARIA where helpful, <figure> and <figcaption> for images, and a lang attribute on the root element.
• Markdown — headings follow a consistent hierarchy and figures use HTML <figure> blocks so alt text and captions survive most renderers.

You can verify a PDF against PDF/UA from the note details panel before sharing it.

Compatibility

Accessible Notes is built and tested with the following browsers and assistive-technology pairings, current versions:

• Browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge.
• Screen readers — NVDA and JAWS on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS, VoiceOver on iOS, TalkBack on Android.
• Magnification — operating-system zoom and browser zoom up to 200%.
• Voice control — Voice Control on macOS and iOS, Voice Access on Windows.

Older browser versions and older AT versions may work but are not part of the test matrix.

Known limitations

We try to be honest about gaps. The current limitations are documented in the formal VPAT; the most user-visible ones:

• Billing checkout is delivered through a third-party iframe (Paddle). You can close the overlay with Escape, but focus management inside the iframe is governed by Paddle's SDK rather than by Accessible Notes.
• Export accessibility checks run on a representative sample in CI rather than on every individual export. Use the PDF/UA checker on the export itself if you need per-document confirmation.

Reporting accessibility issues

If you hit something that doesn't work for you with assistive technology, we want to hear about it. Email support@accessiblenotes.com with:

• the page or feature you were using,
• the assistive technology and browser,
• and what you expected to happen.

We treat accessibility regressions as bugs, not feature requests.