Plotvera accessibility statement
Plotvera. Statement version 0.2, effective 23 Oct 2026.
Anaphase wants Plotvera to be usable by as many researchers as possible, including people who use a keyboard only, a screen reader, magnification or high-contrast settings.
Conformance status
Plotvera is partially conformant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 level AA. Partially conformant means some parts of the content do not fully meet the standard.
Known problems
The most recent automated check (axe-core, WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 A and AA rules, 19 screens at 1280 px wide, on the live 1.2.0-beta.79 build on 21 Oct 2026) found no critical, moderate or minor issues and five serious rules:
| axe rule | WCAG criterion | Where | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| nested-interactive | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value | The graph preview is exposed as one image (role="img") but contains focusable axis and element targets; project tabs are role="tab" elements with focusable children. 23 nodes on 16 screens. | Open |
| target-size | 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) | Small controls such as the project tree collapse chevrons (20 by 24 px). 30 nodes. At 390 px wide the table page has 79 controls under 24 px. | Open |
| color-contrast | 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) | 9 nodes: the "XY" label on the selected navigator row (4.45:1), the orange badge colour, and Layout page metadata text. | Open |
| scrollable-region-focusable | 2.1.1 Keyboard | The table right-click menu can scroll but cannot take keyboard focus. | Open |
| label-content-name-mismatch | 2.5.3 Label in Name | The table Overview button. | Fixed in 1.2.0-beta.80; not yet re-checked with axe |
Other known gaps from the same review: there is no skip link (about 17 Tab presses reach "Open an example project"); closing Help search with Escape moves focus to the page body; dialogs, a screen-reader transcript test and keyboard-only browser tests have not yet been checked in the release gate.
Data graphics are visual by nature. Where a value is shown in a graph, the data table and the results sheet carry the same values as text, and exported SVG graphs carry a title and a description naming the series.
How this was checked
Automated axe-core scans and manual keyboard checks on 21 Oct 2026, plus the targeted assertions in the automated release smoke test described below. No independent assistive-technology audit has been carried out yet.
Feedback
If something in Plotvera is hard to use, email contact@anaphasescience.com with what you were doing, the browser and any assistive technology. Please do not include research data. We aim to reply within 5 working days and will tell you when a fix is planned. We can also provide information from the app in another format on request.
Anaphase is a private company and is not covered by the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. Universities using Plotvera may use this statement in their own accessibility assessment.
Accessibility work to date
Plotvera targets WCAG 2.2 AA for its public research-beta workflows. The 2026-08-13 hardening pass added keyboard-operable project navigation, visible focus styles, reduced-motion support, responsive graph editing, state semantics for selection controls, labelled dialogs and inputs, and accessible SVG <title>/<desc> output. The candidate also traps and restores focus in modal workflows and the responsive Assistant drawer, announces route/result changes, uses named row headers and captions in result tables, avoids nested navigator controls, and supports keyboard navigation in compact project actions. Modal focus containment now also marks every background branch inert for the life of the dialog, so background controls are removed from both sequential focus and the accessibility tree instead of relying on aria-modal alone.
The automated release smoke now checks the app's muted/accent/focus contrast tokens, modal Assistant behaviour at overlay widths, the nonmodal dock at wide widths, mobile action focus/Escape behaviour, and scroll-reachable Share, Feedback, About, and Shortcuts dialogs at a 320 by 256 CSS-pixel viewport (a 400%-equivalent reflow stress case). These targeted assertions are not a complete WCAG audit.
The beta.3 chart editor also keeps narrow-screen previews at a readable minimum size inside a labelled, keyboard-focusable horizontal-scroll region with explicit preview zoom. Heatmap cells choose black or white text from calculated contrast, long labels receive additional layout space, and invalid heatmap or survival inputs produce described unavailable states instead of silent empty graphics. Segmented graph choices expose a contextual group name and descriptive option names, Y-axis automatic/manual fields are unique, and the New data table menu supports focus entry, arrow/Home/End navigation, Escape, outside-click closure, and trigger focus restoration. Route announcements normalize graph names to one suffix. These are targeted improvements, not assistive-technology sign-off.
The beta.4 chart preview exposes 44-pixel axis targets with descriptive button names. Clicking or tapping an axis line, tick, or title, or pressing Enter or Space on a target, opens and focuses the corresponding settings without changing the graph. Axisless and fixed/data-derived chart families expose only truthful controls, and these preview-only interaction targets are removed from every SVG, raster, PDF, and PowerPoint artifact.
Experiment-design choices expose their field grouping and selected state with role="group" and aria-pressed. Coordinate-sensitive graph controls (axis breaks, constant lines, annotations, and comparison endpoints) have unique programmatic names, including their one-based item number and axis role.
Known gaps
- A complete independent keyboard and screen-reader audit is not yet published.
- Dense graph controls still require a formal focus-order, error-message, and touch-target review across assistive technologies; automated contextual-name checks cover common segmented and axis controls but are not an AT audit.
- Accessible source/result tables are not embedded alongside every exported chart.
- Whole-app automated WCAG scanning, native 200%/400% browser zoom, forced-colour/high-contrast testing, and browser/assistive-technology combinations are not yet CI release gates.
- Some scientific colour palettes are not suitable for every colour-vision deficiency; marks and line styles should be used alongside colour.
These are public-launch gates. Report accessibility barriers to contact@anaphasescience.com or through the in-app Feedback action, without including research data.