Accessibility statement

How far it meets the standard

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. Neither the app nor this website has yet been audited against them, by us or by anyone else, so we do not claim that they conform. The limitations we know about are listed below.

The candidate's editor

Keyboard

The editor, its menus and its dialogs work from the keyboard. The menu bar works like a desktop program's: arrow keys move through the menus, Escape closes one, Tab leaves. Dialogs keep the focus inside them, close with Escape where that is safe, and return the focus to where it was. Page break is Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac), and Print is Ctrl+P (Cmd+P). With the spelling check on, Alt+F7 goes to the next misspelt word, and the menu key or Shift+F10 opens its suggestions.

Screen readers

Every button has a name, buttons that switch something on say whether it is on, and menu buttons say whether their menu is open. The answer is a text box called "Your answer". The backup line, and any warning that the work could not be saved, are announced as they change. The page has landmarks: the toolbar and the document.

Zoom and large text

At 200% zoom, or with a large text size, the toolbar wraps onto more lines instead of running off the screen, and dialogs scroll.

Visible focus

Every control shows the same clear focus ring. The document shows one when it is reached by keyboard.

Colour and contrast

The app's own colours are checked by an automated test against WCAG's contrast ratios: 4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for the focus ring. No state is shown by colour alone. In Windows' high contrast mode, buttons keep their borders and a pressed button keeps its mark.

Page colour

For candidates who read better on a tint: cream, pale yellow, pale blue, pale green, pale pink or grey instead of white (View, then Page colour). On screen only; printed pages stay white.

Fonts, sizes and spacing

Six fonts: equivalents of Arial, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia and Times New Roman, and Inter. Sizes from 9 to 36 point. Line spacing single, 1.15, 1.5 or double, which is the default. The fonts are open-source look-alikes, bundled with the app, so the screen and the printed page match on every device.

Page view

The document shows as separate A4 sheets, breaking where the printed pages will, or as one continuous page (View, then Show page breaks).

Motion

Transitions are switched off when the device asks for reduced motion.

This website

• Plain HTML: headings in order, landmarks, and a link to skip to the main content.
• Works with no JavaScript, from the keyboard, with a visible focus ring.
• Text and links meet WCAG AA contrast, in light and dark mode.
• Reflows to a single column on a narrow screen or at 400% zoom, with no sideways scrolling.
• Nothing moves or flashes.

Limitations we know about

• Not yet tried by candidates who use assistive technology. The screen-reader names and keyboard paths were built and checked by us; no school has used ExamDoc with a candidate's own screen reader or dictation software yet.
• The staff pages work on a phone, but have not had the same keyboard and screen-reader review as the candidate's editor.
• Spelling underline in older browsers. Firefox before version 140 and Safari before 17.2 show no underline under misspelt words. Alt+F7 and the suggestions menu still work.
• Other writing systems. The fonts cover the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets and Vietnamese. Text in other scripts, such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic or Devanagari, shows on screen but comes out blank in the printed PDF.
• Pasted fonts. Text pasted in a font ExamDoc doesn't offer (Calibri, say) prints in the Arial equivalent, and may wrap differently from the screen.
• Deleting a page break. Some on-screen keyboards and input methods, as on Android, cannot delete a page break from the start of the text after it. Backspace works, as does selecting the break and pressing Delete.
• The browser's own Print menu prints the page as it looks on screen, with unnumbered footers. ExamDoc's Print button and Ctrl+P print the proper script.
• Browsers. Checked in Chrome and Firefox; Edge and Safari are still to be checked.
• Lock-downs. A lock-down can stop assistive software working: Safe Exam Browser runs on its own Windows desktop, and we have not checked ChromeOS's accessibility settings in kiosk mode. Try a candidate's own software on a locked-down device before the exam.
• No OpenDyslexic. We decided against it for now: research shows no reading benefit, and a font a candidate has not practised with is a risk on the day. Tell us if your candidates use it.

Tell us about a problem

If something in ExamDoc or on this website doesn't work for you or your candidates, or you need information in another format, write to us: [contact email to be added]