Accessibility.

GPTQuest is a learning tool for grades 3 through 8, and it has to work for every student in the room. Accessibility isn’t a checklist we run at the end of a release — it shapes how we build pages, write copy, and design game systems. This page explains what we target, how we test, where we’re strong, and where we’re still working.

Our standard

We target conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA, the standard most US public schools require of the tools they buy. WCAG 2.1 AA covers four core principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust across assistive technologies.

In May 2026 we completed an internal audit of every public-facing page, the Teacher Control Panel, and the in-game World. Each surface was scanned with axe-core against WCAG 2.1 A and AA rules, then remediated until automated violations dropped to zero. Manual review covered keyboard navigation, focus visibility, screen-reader announcements, color contrast, and motion preferences.

What we’ve built in

• Semantic landmarks. Every page uses real <main>, <nav>, and <aside> regions with labels, so screen-reader users can jump straight to what they need.
• Keyboard support across the app. Every interactive element — buttons, links, form fields, and the in-game canvas — is reachable with the keyboard and shows a visible focus ring.
• Color contrast. Text and meaningful UI meet or exceed WCAG AA contrast ratios (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and graphical objects).
• Reduced motion. We honor the operating-system prefers-reduced-motion setting. When it’s on, our landing-page animations stop and looping videos pause.
• Form labels and error messages. Every input is labeled, every error is announced, and we don’t use color alone to signal validation state.
• Image alt text. Meaningful illustrations have descriptive alt text. Decorative images are marked aria-hidden so they don’t add noise to a screen reader’s output.

Accessibility Mode for the game World

GPTQuest’s game World is drawn on an HTML canvas, which is inherently opaque to assistive technologies — a screen reader can’t inspect what’s painted on a canvas the way it can inspect HTML. To make the game playable for students who rely on screen readers or who can’t process the visual scene, we built Accessibility Mode.

When a player turns Accessibility Mode on (Settings → System), a structured panel appears alongside the World. It lists nearby quest markers, NPCs, and map exits as focusable buttons with their direction and distance, plus the player’s current inventory totals. The panel reopens and collapses with a dedicated toggle button on every viewport size, so it’s easy to bring up only when needed. The canvas itself also exposes role="application" with an aria-live announcer that narrates state changes (quest opened, exit reached, NPC nearby) as the player moves.

Conformance status

We claim partial conformance with WCAG 2.1 AA across the platform. “Partial” is the honest framing for any product that ships actively-developed features and integrates third-party content; below is where the gaps live so schools can evaluate accurately.

• Public marketing pages, signup, signin: conformant.
• Teacher Control Panel (/cpanel): conformant for the core flows (classroom roster, assignments, progress reporting, billing).
• In-game World (/world): conformant for the surrounding DOM (GameDock, modals, navigation). The canvas surface is covered by Accessibility Mode as described above.
• Quests (solo and multiplayer): mixed. Text-based Quests work well with screen readers. Quests with rich visual or audio elements (Lyra the Songweaver, Royal Game of Goose, The Crimson Dragon) currently rely on visual cues for some game states; we’re iterating on each Quest’s narration coverage.
• AI-generated content: images and music produced inside Quests are generated at runtime. We caption them with descriptive titles, but we cannot pre-author alt text for every generated image. We treat this as acceptable under WCAG’s allowance for incidental visual content tied to gameplay.

Tested with

Our automated test suite runs Playwright + axe-core against every key route on each release. Manual testing has been done against:

• VoiceOver on macOS Safari and iOS Safari
• NVDA on Windows Chrome and Firefox
• Keyboard-only navigation across the full app
• 200% browser zoom and reflow at 400px viewport width
• OS-level Reduce Motion enabled

Known limitations

We track accessibility issues like any other product bug. Active known limitations:

• The in-game canvas does not yet describe rich tile detail (terrain type, decorative props) inside Accessibility Mode — only navigable game objects.
• A few Quest-specific UIs (the songwriter step in Lyra, the board layout in Royal Game of Goose) need additional screen-reader narration for animation transitions.
• Some teacher tools that show large data tables (full classroom rosters, multi-classroom progress reports) prioritize density over screen-reader ergonomics; we’re adding inline summaries and sortable accessible alternatives in upcoming releases.

Report a barrier

If you, your student, or a colleague hits an accessibility barrier in GPTQuest, please tell us. We treat reports as P1 and aim to acknowledge within two business days. The fastest path is our Contact Us page (select “Report” from the dropdown) or by emailing contact@kixmetalabs.com with the page URL, the assistive technology you were using, and what you expected versus what happened.

For school procurement

Schools evaluating GPTQuest for purchase often need a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) or Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). We can provide one on request — reach out via Contact Us and note your district name and the timeline you’re working with. For data-handling and FERPA / COPPA terms, see our DPA for Schools.

How this page changes

We’ll update this page each time a substantive conformance change ships — new audit results, new features that move the needle, or resolved limitations. The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the most recent revision.