accessibility
Accessibility
This page is short on purpose. It lists what PAXAL currently supports for assistive tech, what I know is gapped, and where to email if I missed something. I'd rather be honest about the gaps than market my way around them.
THE COMMITMENT
I'm targeting WCAG 2.2 AA conformance on the public marketing surfaces and the driving demo. The interactive game has additional input-mode considerations the marketing pages don't — driving, photo mode, photo-hunt scoring — and those are called out separately below. This is conformance intent, not a certification: no external firm has audited the site yet.
WHAT'S SUPPORTED
Keyboard navigation
Every interactive element on the marketing pages is reachable by Tab. ESC closes overlays — the arena picker, the pause surface, the settings drawer, the photo mode. The driving demo accepts keyboard input throughout.
Focus indication
Visible amber focus rings on every button and link (focus-visible in styles/globals.css), drawn with a 2-pixel outline and a 2-pixel offset. There's no outline: none without a replacement.
Reduced motion
The home hero's Ken Burns drift is disabled under prefers-reduced-motion: reduce. The in-game settings drawer also exposes a manual reduced-motion toggle that propagates to the canvas (camera sway, screen shake).
Color contrast
Body text on the paxal-bg backdrop (#07080A) hits AA at 4.5:1; headline / large text hits 3:1. This applies to the marketing pages (/, /how-it-works, /press, /faq, /privacy, /contact, this page) — the same claim doesn't cover every surface inside the driving demo yet.
Screen-reader semantics
Landmark elements — <header>, <main>, <footer>, <nav>. Decorative SVGs are marked aria-hidden so they don't pollute the reading order. Imagery that carries meaning ships alt text.
KNOWN GAPS
Captions on demo footage
The /how-it-works page autoplays muted demo clips. Captions aren't wired yet — they're queued.
Skip-to-canvas link on the home page
A keyboard user reaching the home page tabs through the header nav before landing on the IGNITE button. A proper skip-to-main-content link is queued; for now, the layout keeps the IGNITE button at most three Tab stops in.
Color-blind safety audit of the in-game UI
The marketing-page palette passes contrast — the in-game HUD (combo meter, drift score, photo-hunt nameplates) hasn't been put through a deuteranopia / protanopia / tritanopia pass yet.
One-handed mode for game controls
No remap layer for one-handed play. Keyboard layout is fixed (WASD / arrows / space-brake) and not yet rebindable.
External accessibility audit
No public audit by an outside firm has happened yet. When one does, the findings + the dates land on this page.
THE GAME ITSELF
The driving demo is playable by keyboard, gamepad, and touch. Controls aren't rebindable yet — see Known Gaps above. Photosensitivity: the current shipped arenas don't flash above 3 Hz, and the reduced-motion toggle dampens camera sway and impact shake. If a future arena needs to flash for a narrative reason, there'll be a warning before you enter it.
PHOTOSENSITIVITY
The DRIVE demo contains motion and brief flashes — an ignition flash on start, an animated scanline overlay, speed-driven camera motion, and collision blur. If you're sensitive to flashing or motion, treat this as an advisory before you enter. The in-demo accessibility panel offers a reduced-motion toggle, and the site honors your OS prefers-reduced-motion setting.
REPORT A BARRIER
Anything on this site or inside the game that gets in your way — email hpj675@gmail.com. Tell me what assistive tech you're using and what happened. Accessibility bugs get treated the same as any other regression.
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