Accessibility

Accessibility at debAIt

debAIt is a voice-first debate platform, and we want it to work for everyone. We are working toward WCAG 2.1 AA. This page describes honestly what works today, what does not yet, and how to reach us.

What works today

• Keyboard navigation — core flows (finding a debate, joining one, settings) are operable from the keyboard, with visible focus rings.
• Reduced motion — when your device asks for reduced motion, animations across the app are suspended.
• Screen-reader labels — buttons, form fields and status changes carry ARIA labels and live-region announcements.
• In-debate transcript — during a debate, a live transcript panel shows what each speaker said, so following along does not depend on hearing.
• Live captions (experimental) — a CC toggle in the debate room shows automatic captions of the current speaker in real time on supported browsers; the full transcript still lands after every turn.
• Contrast-tested themes — the dark, light and university themes run through an automated WCAG contrast engine before they ship.

Known gaps and roadmap

We are not done. The gaps we know about:

• Caption accuracy and coverage — live captions come from the speaker's browser speech recognition: they are experimental, unavailable in some browsers (for example Firefox), and less accurate than the per-turn transcript, which remains the reliable record.
• Debating requires voice — the judge scores your spoken audio, so competing in a debate is not yet possible without speaking. Spectating, polls and the feed work fully without a microphone.
• No formal third-party audit yet — our contrast and semantics checks are automated and internal.

Tips on your device

• Prefer less animation? Turn on "Reduce motion" in your system settings (Windows: Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects · macOS/iOS: Accessibility → Motion · Android: Accessibility → Remove animations). debAIt honors it automatically.
• debAIt follows your system light/dark preference, and you can pick a theme manually in the app if another one reads better for you.

This statement is product documentation, not a compliance claim, and it will evolve as the platform does.