Accessibility
CivilsTools should be usable by everyone on your crew, including people who navigate by keyboard, use a screen reader, or need larger text and stronger contrast.
1. Our commitment
We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We treat accessibility as part of building the product, not as a bolt-on: contrast is measured rather than eyeballed, and every interactive control is checked for keyboard operation.
2. Where we currently stand — honestly
We would rather tell you the real state of things than claim a certification we do not hold. CivilsTools is not certified by any third party and we do not claim full conformance across the entire product.
| Area | Status |
|---|---|
| Marketing site, login, signup and these legal pages | Tested and conforming to WCAG 2.1 AA, verified with automated testing across mobile and desktop widths. |
| The main application and its tools | Partially conforming. Core flows have been reviewed and improved, but the tool suite is large and has not been audited screen by screen. |
| Drawing, site-plan and map views | Known limitation. Placing a pin on a drawing or a map is inherently visual and spatial, and does not currently have a full non-visual equivalent. If you need to record a location without using the map, you can type the description and coordinates into the record instead — contact us and we will help. |
| Exported PDFs | Known limitation. Generated PDFs are not yet fully tagged for screen readers. The same data is readable in the app. |
| Uploaded documents | Outside our control. Specification PDFs you upload are third-party documents; a scanned spec book has no usable text until our OCR processes it, and its accessibility is a property of the original file. |
3. What we have built in
- Keyboard access. The site and the sign-in flow are fully operable with a keyboard, in a logical order, with a visible focus indicator on every control.
- Skip link. A "Skip to main content" link is the first thing you reach with the Tab key, so you can jump past the navigation.
- Contrast. Text and interface colours are checked against WCAG contrast ratios by calculation. Buttons, body text and muted text all meet the AA thresholds.
- Never colour alone. Errors and validation are announced in text and to assistive technology, not signalled only by turning something red.
- Labels and alternative text. Form fields have real labels, and images carry alternative text describing what they show.
- Structure. Proper headings, landmarks and lists so a screen reader can navigate by structure.
- Zoom and reflow. The layout works at 200% zoom and on small screens.
- Reduced motion. We honour your system "reduce motion" setting.
- Voice input. Many tools accept dictation instead of typing, which helps if typing is difficult — on site or off it.
- Language options. Forms can be filled in English or Spanish.
4. Tell us about a barrier — we will fix it
If any part of CivilsTools blocks you, please tell us. We treat accessibility reports as bugs, not feature requests.
- Email: [email protected]
It helps if you can tell us the page or tool, what you were trying to do, and what assistive technology and browser you use — but report it even if you cannot. We aim to acknowledge within 3 business days and to give you a fix or a workaround as quickly as we can. If we cannot fix something quickly, we will offer another way to get the same result.
5. How we test
Automated checks with axe-core across the public pages at mobile and desktop widths, manual keyboard-only walkthroughs of the sign-in and core flows, and contrast verified by calculation from the source colour values rather than by eye. Automated tools catch only part of what matters — which is exactly why your reports are useful to us.
6. Changes
This statement is reviewed when we make significant interface changes. The version and effective date above tell you when it was last updated.