Accessibility Statement

Last updated: 28 Feb 2023
By: Kialo Accessibility Lead

Kialo Edu (kialo-edu.com) is a custom version of Kialo (kialo.com) specifically designed for classroom use. Kialo Edu’s mission is to assist educators world-wide to train critical thinking, facilitate classroom debate, and explain controversial issues. We are therefore committed to ensuring that Kialo Edu is accessible to all regardless of ability or technical requirement.

Compliance

We continuously have accessibility in mind when designing our platform. This includes following leading accessibility guidelines and standards such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 and Section 508 standards in the United States with which we are broadly compliant. For more information on this, please see our VPAT report (.pdf)

We also carry out accessibility audits to identify where we can improve. Our last external audit was in March 2019 after which we implemented all key areas of improvement. We intend to undertake another external audit soon. 

This statement is based on our last audit and internal testing using JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver.

Features

Kialo Edu provides users with a number of accessibility features, including the following:

Screen-Reader Compatibility: All Kialo Edu features have been developed with screen readers in mind, so all essential functionality works flawlessly using screen readers. We continuously test the following browser and screen-reader combinations for these operating systems:

  1. Windows: Firefox & NVDA, Google Chrome & JAWS
  2. Mac: Safari & VoiceOver
  3. Mobile: Kialo Edu’s essential features are accessible with most mobile screen readers

Colors: Kialo can be used in color blind mode. Users with red-green color vision deficiency can enable an optimized color scheme

Keyboard Navigation: Kialo is almost entirely operable by keyboard only. All claims can be accessed by keyboard through the regular site-navigation.

Orientation: Kialo Edu can be used in all orientations on tablets and desktop computers. On most phones there is not enough space to show the interface in landscape-orientation due to screen size. However, portrait orientation works fine on mobile.

Zoom: Users can zoom freely using their browser zoom. This zooms in on the whole interface.

Accessibility Gaps & Solutions

We are not aware of any high-impact accessibility gaps. But we remain proactive about identifying and resolving all conformance issues. We are aware of some low-impact accessibility gaps and are working to address them. These are:

  1. Color: Color is used as the only signifier of an entity’s characteristics in a very limited number of non-essential cases:
    a. the sunburst distinguishes pro and con claims by color only;
    b. the color of linked claims in comments signifies its relation to the above claim.
    By selecting the claims and linked claims, users can identify their position.
  2. Contrast: In most situations accessible color contrast is supported. There are some situations where colored text or icons may not satisfy the contrast requirements. This depends on the background.
  3. Keyboard: Kialo Edu is operable by keyboard only, save for:
    a. the mini map at the top of a discussion;
    b. the sunburst graphic in the discussion info.
    The sunburst and mini map are not essential for using Kialo and are currently being redesigned.

Contact Us

We are always happy to provide accessibility-related assistance. We also really appreciate feedback and recommendations, and will endeavor to address any requests. Please contact our dedicated accessibility lead via accessibility-support@kialo.com.

Resources

Section 508 Standards
W3C Accessibility Standards Overview
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1
WebAIM Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Kialo Edu VPAT [July 2021].pdf

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