Nova / accessibility

Accessibility at Nova

Nova is used by students who revise with screen readers, with keyboards only, with magnification, and with motion sensitivity. This page says plainly what works today and what does not. It is not a compliance badge — where something is unfinished, it says so.

What we aim for

The marketing site targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Where a specific criterion is met we have measured it rather than assumed it.

What is verified

  • Contrast. Every colour pair in the design system is checked programmatically against WCAG 2.2 AA on each build — body text at 4.5:1 or better, large text and UI borders at 3:1 or better, in both light and dark themes. The check reads the stylesheet itself, so it cannot drift from what ships.
  • Keyboard. Every interactive element is reachable by keyboard and shows a visible focus ring — a 2px outline in the accent colour, offset by 2px. The browser default is never simply removed.
  • Focus is never hidden. The sticky call-to-action on mobile reserves space below it so a focused element cannot end up behind the bar (WCAG 2.2, 2.4.11).
  • Target size. Every control is at least 24 by 24 pixels (WCAG 2.2, 2.5.8). Buttons are 44 pixels tall.
  • Reduced motion. With Reduce motion enabled in your system settings, animation is switched off rather than merely shortened, and the site remains fully usable. No content is only reachable through an animation.
  • Skip link. The first thing in the tab order on every page.
  • No horizontal scrolling at 390 pixels wide, which is the width most of our students are on.
  • No drag-only interactions anywhere (WCAG 2.2, 2.5.7).

Deliberate choices

  • No custom cursor. A custom cursor hides content and overrides the pointer size and contrast settings that some people rely on.
  • No hijacked scrolling. One scroll of your wheel or thumb always moves the page by one scroll. Nothing takes the scroll position away from you.
  • No autoplaying sound and no audio that starts without you asking.
  • Loading shows the shape of what is coming rather than a spinner, so the page does not jump when content arrives.

Known gaps

Being honest about this is more useful than claiming full conformance:

  • The signed-in app — past papers, notes, flashcards, predicted grades — has not yet had the same audit as the marketing site. It is next.
  • We have not completed testing with screen-reader and browser combinations beyond VoiceOver on Safari and NVDA on Firefox.
  • We have not yet had an independent accessibility audit.

Telling us something is wrong

If something on Nova is unusable for you, tell us and we will treat it as a bug, not a feature request. Include the page, what you were using, and what happened. A contact route is being set up; until it is live, this page will be updated with it.

This statement describes the Nova marketing site and is updated when the site changes.