Accessibility Statement

1. What this statement covers

This statement covers the FairTalk app at app.fairtalk.io and our website at fairtalk.io. FairTalk is offered in English only. Paying for or managing a subscription (Stripe) and signing in with Google happen on pages we do not control and have not reviewed.

2. Our target and where we are today

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA, the level the Australian Human Rights Commission recommends. The app does not meet it today, and we claim no level of conformance. We have not reviewed the website in depth, so we do not know whether it meets the standard. Sections 3 to 5 are about the app.

This statement is based on our own review of the app’s code and on tests that read the markup the pages produce and the stylesheets, done at the time of writing. There has been no independent audit and no accessibility check run in a browser, and nothing has been tested with a screen reader or other assistive technology, a keyboard alone, high zoom or people with disability. So we cannot list browsers or assistive technology known to work. The tests that check names, buttons, headings and colours read every screen, but our first review of the code did not look closely at our newest screens, including the notice and agreement step before recording with someone who is not on FairTalk and the delete option on a conversation, so this statement may not hold for them.

The app’s controls come from a third-party component library (Radzen Blazor). We rely on its accessibility support without having verified it, and it can change when the app is rebuilt, so this statement may go out of date before we notice.

3. What is in place today

These points describe how the app is built, as read from its code. None has been confirmed by testing.

• Main text, headings and main buttons use colours calculated to meet Level AA contrast.
• Main buttons are sized for touch, the layout adapts to phones and browser zoom is not blocked.
• Recording, reading an analysis and saving resolutions use standard buttons expected to work from a keyboard.
• The notification sound comes with a badge and an on-screen message, but you cannot turn the sound off.
• Sign-in has no puzzle or memory test, nothing blocks a password manager, nothing flashes, and nothing needs dragging or multi-finger gestures.
• Every page starts with a link to skip to the main content, and the main content is marked as the main landmark.
• Text fields, tick boxes, drop-downs and switches are given names for a screen reader to announce, and the tick boxes for accepting our documents, confirming you are 18 or over and agreeing to a recording take their name from the sentence beside them.
• The account menu (Profile, Billing, Contact us and Log out) and the Alerts tab, where a linked person approves a session request, can be reached with the Tab key and opened with Enter. Escape closes them.
• The controls for ticking off a resolution or a past session, opening a group of resolutions, choosing a profile icon and opening a Knowledge Hub article are buttons or links that the Tab key reaches and Enter or Space presses. Help tips are buttons too, and Escape closes them.
• The dialog that asks you to finish a session, the welcome dialog and the feedback dialogs name themselves, take keyboard focus when they open and close with Escape.
• Error messages on the sign-in, sign-up, password and code pages are announced when they appear, and each field in the form points at the message and is marked as invalid while it shows.
• Each page has a level 1 heading with its sections beneath it, and when the page changes keyboard focus moves to that heading, so a screen reader says where you are.
• The recording screen says out loud when it is ready, recording, paused or being processed, and when a recording did not send and can be tried again.
• The note that FairTalk is not a replacement for professional support, with the Lifeline number for Australia, 1737 for New Zealand and 988 for the United States, shows on the screen where you start a new session. The same lines, with the emergency numbers, are a tap away from every screen under Get help now in the account menu. Our Australia and New Zealand Notice lists more support contacts.

4. FairTalk depends on speech

The only way to create a session is to speak into your device’s microphone. You cannot type a conversation, paste text or upload a recording, so if you do not use speech you cannot use the main feature.

• If you are deaf or hard of hearing and you speak, you can record a session and read every result, because results are on-screen text. FairTalk does not caption the conversation as it happens.
• If you have a speech difference, the automatic transcription may make more mistakes. You cannot read or correct the full transcript, so mistakes can carry into the analysis.
• When you record with someone who is not on FairTalk, the notice and their agreement step appear only as text on your screen. If they cannot read it, read it to them in full before they agree.

5. Other known limitations

These limitations also come from reading the app’s code. None, including the workarounds, has been confirmed by testing.

Keyboard

• Pop-ups made by our component library, such as the ones confirming you want to delete your account or unlink a person, are built to keep keyboard focus inside them and to close with Escape. We read this from the library’s code and have not tested it.

Seeing and reading

• The colours we set for text, including the message banners (recording errors, and the messages that a linked person approved or declined a session), the notification badge and notifications you have already seen, have been calculated from our stylesheet to meet Level AA contrast. The colours inside our component library’s own widgets, such as the lists that open from a drop-down, have not been checked. Links inside a sentence are underlined, so they are not marked by colour alone.
• There is no dark or high-contrast mode. Text sizes follow your browser’s default font size, and no text is set smaller than 12 pixels at that default (icons and the initials in the profile circle are fixed sizes). Some long labels and titles are cut off instead of wrapping.
• Tick boxes, on/off switches and help tips answer a click or a tap in an area of at least 24 by 24 pixels, the WCAG 2.2 minimum target size, although the control drawn is smaller. We have not measured the other small controls.

Timing and forms

• From 25 minutes the page asks you to wrap up, and recording stops automatically at 30 minutes, with no way to extend it.
• A long recording may be refused as too large after you finish. It cannot then be recovered, and the only sign is an error message in low contrast colours. We have not tested a full 30 minute recording.
• Most pop-up messages, including errors, disappear after about 3 seconds and cannot be paused or read again.
• Forms do not mark required fields, and the sign-up form shows the password length rule only after you submit.

6. Getting help or reporting a barrier

Email contact@fairtalk.com.au. To report a barrier, name the page, your device and your browser. If you are comfortable telling us, say which assistive technology you use. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information.

• If a barrier stops you doing something in the app, such as cancelling your subscription or deleting your account, we will work out another way with you. We will need to confirm it is you before we act on your account or send you anything from it.
• We have no alternative to spoken input today. Tell us what you need and we will say plainly what we can do.

We will reply by email and tell you what we found and what we can do. We have not set dates for fixing the barriers listed here. We will update this statement when we fix one or learn of a new one.

7. If you are not satisfied with our response

You can complain to the Australian Human Rights Commission, which handles disability discrimination complaints under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth). In New Zealand, you can contact the New Zealand Human Rights Commission about discrimination under the Human Rights Act 1993 (NZ).