Accessibility Statement

Our commitment

Paws & Visits, Inc. is committed to making pawsandvisits.com, the Paws & Visits web app, and the Paws & Visits browser extension usable by everyone, including people who use screen readers, magnification, speech input, switch access, or keyboard-only navigation. Adopting an animal is stressful enough; the onboarding tools should not add a barrier.

Our target standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA, published by the W3C. We treat accessibility as an ongoing engineering obligation rather than a one-time audit: every new interface component is checked before release, and accessibility defects are triaged in the same queue as functional bugs.

Conformance status

Paws & Visits is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. "Partially conformant" means that most of the site meets the standard, but some content does not yet fully conform. The known exceptions are listed below with the reason and a remediation date; we would rather publish that list than claim conformance we cannot evidence.

Our most recent internal audit was completed on 12 August 2026 and covered the home page, breed plan builder, pet profile forms, visit booking flow, checkout, account settings, and the extension popup. An independent third-party audit is scheduled for Q1 2027.

What already works

• Semantic landmarks, one h1 per page, and a correctly nested heading outline.
• A visible skip-to-content link and a logical, uninterrupted keyboard tab order.
• Focus indicators that meet the 3:1 non-text contrast requirement, never removed.
• Body text at 4.5:1 contrast or better against our cream and forest palette; large display text at 3:1 or better.
• Form fields with persistent visible labels, programmatic associations, and error messages announced via a live region rather than colour alone.
• Text that reflows without horizontal scrolling at 320 CSS pixels wide and remains usable at 200% zoom and 400% magnification.
• Target sizes of at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels with adequate spacing (WCAG 2.2, 2.5.8).
• Reduced-motion support: all non-essential animation is disabled when prefers-reduced-motion: reduce is set.
• Meaningful alternative text on informative images and empty alt on decorative illustration.

Known limitations

• Third-party booking iframe keyboard traps. The embedded scheduling widget used by some in-home providers can trap focus inside its calendar grid, and its date cells are not announced as a grid by all screen readers. This is vendor-controlled code. We have filed the defect with the vendor, added a documented escape mechanism, and offer booking by phone as an equal alternative. Target: replaced with our own accessible scheduler by 31 March 2027.
• PDF care plans generated before 2025. Downloadable care-plan PDFs produced before January 2025 are untagged, so reading order and table structure are not exposed to assistive technology. Every plan generated since then is tagged and has document language and title metadata. Target: legacy archive re-tagged or retired by 31 December 2026. In the meantime, email us and we will send any legacy plan as accessible HTML within two business days.
• Illustrated charts lacking long descriptions. Several illustrated figures — the vaccination timeline, the socialisation window chart, and the puppy growth curve — have short alternative text but no long description or data-table equivalent, so the detailed values are not available non-visually. Target: accessible data tables published alongside every figure by 30 June 2027.
• Video captions and audio description. All videos are captioned, but three older training clips do not yet have audio description. Target: 28 February 2027.
• Extension popup at high zoom. Above roughly 250% zoom the extension popup can clip its footer actions because the browser constrains popup height. Target: switch to a side-panel layout by 31 May 2027.

Assistive technology we test with

We test each release against the following combinations, on current or prior-major versions:

• VoiceOver with Safari on macOS 15 and on iOS 18.
• NVDA with Chrome and with Firefox on Windows 11.
• JAWS with Chrome on Windows 11 (quarterly regression pass).
• TalkBack with Chrome on Android 15.
• Keyboard-only navigation, 400% browser zoom, Windows High Contrast mode, and Dragon speech input for primary conversion flows.

Automated checks (axe-core) run in continuous integration on every pull request, but automated tooling catches only a minority of real barriers, so manual testing gates every release that changes a form, a dialog, or a navigation pattern.

Technical specifications

Accessibility of this site relies on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WAI-ARIA, and SVG. It is built to work with the accessibility features of current browsers and assistive technologies. Where a component requires JavaScript, a non-JavaScript fallback or an equivalent alternative channel (phone or email) is provided.

Feedback and how to get help

If you hit a barrier, please tell us — reports from real users are the fastest way we find problems. Include the page URL, what you were trying to do, and your browser, operating system, and assistive technology if you know them.

• Email: [email protected] with the subject line "Accessibility"
• Phone: +1 (828) 555-0142, Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm Eastern
• Post: Attn: Accessibility, Paws & Visits, Inc., 1420 Ridgeway Ave, Suite 210, Asheville, NC 28801

We aim to respond substantively within 5 business days, including our assessment and either a fix date or a description of the alternative way we will get you what you needed. If a barrier blocks a booking or a purchase, our support team will complete the task with you directly while the underlying defect is fixed.

Enforcement and legal references

We recognise obligations under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. §12181 et seq.) as applied to places of public accommodation and their websites, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. §794d) and its Revised 508 Standards where we supply services to federal agencies, Section 504 where applicable, and the European Accessibility Act together with EN 301 549 for our European visitors. This statement was prepared using the W3C Accessibility Statement Generator structure and is reviewed at least every six months, and after any significant redesign.

Contact

Paws & Visits, Inc.
1420 Ridgeway Ave, Suite 210
Asheville, NC 28801, USA

Accessibility feedback: [email protected]
Privacy requests: [email protected]
Phone: +1 (828) 555-0142