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CollegeBinder

Accessibility

Last updated August 24, 2026.

The short version

CollegeBinder aims to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Every page currently passes automated testing against that standard, and the keyboard and zoom checks below. It has not yet been tested with a real screen reader by a person who uses one, and this Accessibility statement will be updated when further testing is conducted.

If something here stops you doing what you came to do, email hello@collegebinder.com and say what happened. Try to be as specific as you can, so we can locate the bug and fix them so you can enjoy a better experience. We aim to reply within five working days.

What has been tested, and how

Tested on August 24, 2026 across fourteen pages, covering the marketing pages, the help centre, the legal pages, sign-in, and every screen inside the signed-in app.

  • Automated rules. axe-core 4.13, run against WCAG 2.1 A and AA rules on all fourteen pages. Zero violations.
  • Keyboard only. Every interactive element can be reached and operated with Tab and Enter. There are no keyboard traps. Each page begins with a skip link, so the navigation can be jumped past.
  • Visible focus. Every element that can take focus shows it. Measured across five pages: no focusable element was found without a visible focus indicator.
  • Zoom. At 200% magnification no page scrolls sideways and no content is cut off.
  • Touch targets. Controls are at least 44 by 44 pixels, including the checkboxes and the bottom navigation.
  • Reduced motion. Where the operating system asks for reduced motion, animation is switched off rather than shortened. The scroll-linked reveals do not run at all.
  • Colour is never the only signal. Status is carried by words as well: a completed deadline says so, a flagged date says “Confirm with the school”, and aid amounts are labelled rather than distinguished by colour alone.

What was fixed to get here

Two things were wrong when this was first measured, and both are worth recording rather than quietly correcting.

  • Text contrast. One colour, used for captions, hints, dates and the “in about a month” chips, sat at 2.96:1 against the page background where AA requires 4.5:1. That single value produced 259 failures across every page in the product. It is now 4.56:1 on the paper background and 4.76:1 on white.
  • Tables that scrolled sideways. Wide tables in the legal pages and the award breakdown could be scrolled with a finger or a mouse and not with a keyboard, because nothing inside them could take focus. They are now focusable and labelled.

What has not been tested

These are real gaps, not formalities.

  • Screen readers. No testing with VoiceOver, NVDA or JAWS has been carried out. Automated rules check that elements carry names and roles; they cannot tell whether the result makes sense read aloud, in order, by somebody trying to finish a task.
  • Voice control and switch access. Not tested.
  • Cognitive load. Not assessed with users. The product deals with deadlines and money under time pressure, which is exactly the situation where unclear wording does the most harm.
  • Uploaded award letters. A letter you upload is your own document. If it is a scanned image with no text layer, the analysis reads it, but the original file remains an image and is not made accessible by us.

Known limitations

  • The scroll-linked animation on the marketing page needs a browser that supports scroll-driven animation. Where it is unsupported the content is simply shown, which is the correct outcome, not a degraded one.
  • Payment is handled by Stripe on Stripe's own pages. Their accessibility is theirs to state, not ours.

How this is kept true

The automated checks are run against every page before a release that changes the interface. This statement is updated when the result changes, including when it gets worse. A statement that is only updated with good news is not a statement worth reading.

Reporting a barrier

Email hello@collegebinder.com. Tell us what page you were on, what you were trying to do, and what happened instead. If you use assistive technology, saying which one helps, but it is not required.

We aim to reply within five working days. Where something can be fixed quickly it will be, and where it cannot, you will be told what the plan is and roughly when.