Accessibility Statement

FocusHear exists specifically to make conversations accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Accessibility is not a secondary consideration for us — it is the entire purpose of the product. We are committed to ensuring that FocusHear itself is as accessible as possible, in addition to the accessibility it provides to its users.

We aim to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.

We use the following measures to support accessibility across FocusHear:

• Semantic HTML5 elements throughout, including role="alert" and aria-live="assertive" on the sound alert banner for screen reader compatibility.
• All interactive controls include aria-label and aria-pressed attributes.
• Colour is never used as the only means of conveying information — all states are also communicated via text or iconography.
• Light and dark themes are both supported; the dark theme is optimised for low-light environments common during late-night use.
• Caption font size is user-configurable from 18px to 48px.
• Caption position (top, middle, bottom) is user-configurable to suit individual visual fields.
• Caption background can be set to dark frosted, light frosted, or transparent to maximise contrast against any camera background.
• Haptic feedback is provided on Android devices when a sound alert fires.
• All buttons include visible focus indicators and meet minimum touch target sizes.

The following table summarises our current accessibility conformance across the app's main features. We are transparent about known gaps and are actively working to resolve them.

We are aware of the following gaps and are working to address them:

• Face selection during a session is not accessible via keyboard or screen reader. This is a fundamental limitation of the current touch/click-to-select interaction model. We are researching voice-activated speaker selection as an alternative.
• The prefers-reduced-motion CSS media query is not yet respected for all animations.
• The app is not currently usable without a camera and microphone. Offline or camera-free modes are not supported.
• Caption translation quality depends on OpenAI GPT-4o and may be less accurate for lower-resource languages.

We take accessibility feedback seriously. If you experience any barriers while using FocusHear, or if you find that any part of this app does not meet your accessibility needs, please tell us.

Contact us at: carl.masters.dev@protonmail.com

In your message, please include:

• The page or feature you were using
• The barrier you encountered
• The assistive technology or browser you were using (if applicable)

We aim to respond to accessibility feedback within 5 business days.

If you are not satisfied with our response to your accessibility feedback, you have the right to contact the relevant national enforcement body in your country. In the European Union, this is typically your national Data Protection Authority or the body responsible for enforcing the European Accessibility Act (EAA). In the United States, complaints may be filed with the Department of Justice under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

This statement was prepared through self-assessment of the FocusHear application. We review and update this statement whenever significant changes are made to the application. The next scheduled review is at the time of the next major version release.