APX wants every student, parent and tutor to be able to use the portal and the live session room, including people who use a screen reader, a keyboard, captions, zoom or other assistive technology.
Our target
We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, level AA in the portal and the session room. We are not there yet everywhere: the known gaps are listed below, and we fix problems as we find them.
What the session room offers
- Keyboard: the room's buttons, menus, chat and people list can be reached with Tab. Shortcuts: Ctrl+D (Cmd+D on a Mac) mute, Ctrl+E camera, Ctrl+Alt+C chat, Ctrl+Alt+P people, Ctrl+Alt+H raise your hand, Ctrl+Alt+M mini player, Ctrl+Alt+W reads out who is here (on a Mac these Ctrl+Alt shortcuts are Cmd+Ctrl, for example Cmd+Ctrl+C for chat), and ? lists every shortcut. Single-key shortcuts (like ? and C) can be turned off in Settings.
- Screen readers: joins, leaves, raised hands and recording notices are announced. Each video tile gives the person's name and role, and shows whether they are muted.
- Captions: live captions run on your device where the browser supports it, with a choice of text size, position and background.
- Zoom: the room is designed to work at 200% text size and on narrow phone screens.
- Motion: the room respects your device's reduce-motion setting and the portal's Calm mode.
- Help in the same place: the Get help button sits in the same spot on every screen of the room.
How we test
- Automated end-to-end tests run a tutor and a student through the room in Chrome: joining, the lobby, screen sharing, camera and microphone changes, poor networks, the whiteboard and recording.
- Automated checks of the room's building blocks, such as the join window and the messages shown when something goes wrong.
- We have not yet finished a recorded pass with screen readers (such as NVDA and VoiceOver), keyboard-only use, 200% zoom or a 320-pixel-wide screen. We will list each one here once it is done.
Known limitations
- The whiteboard needs a mouse, pen or touch, including for typed text and equations. Chat works fully from the keyboard.
- After someone mutes or unmutes, the muted status on their video tile can take up to 30 seconds to update.
- On very narrow screens (about 320 pixels wide) the room's top bar is cramped: the session title can be hidden and some buttons may not fit. Turning the phone sideways helps. We are fixing this.
- On-device captions depend on your browser. Where they aren't available, cloud captions are used only if a parent has opted in.
- iPhones can't share their screen. If your tutor turns on uploads for the session, you can upload a photo of your work instead.
Tell us about a barrier
If something in APX is hard or impossible to use, email [email protected] with the page and what happened. We reply within 5 business days and can arrange another way to take part in the meantime.
APX Learning Institute LLC, California.