For everyone who plays
Accessibility
A team game only works if the whole team can play. Here’s what Crowdboard does for people who use a keyboard, a screen reader, zoom or speech input, what’s still hard, and what to do about it. Reviewed 22 October 2026.
At a glance
Aiming for WCAG 2.1 AA
On the public site, the host deck, the TV board, players’ phones and the host remote.
Keyboard throughout
Real buttons, links and fields. The deck’s one-key shortcuts can be turned off for speech input.
Says what changed
Phones and the deck tell a screen reader what just happened, without moving focus.
Zoom without scrolling sideways
Pages reflow at 320 px wide (400% zoom) and with wider text spacing.
Less motion on request
With Reduce motion on, answers appear without flipping and nothing shakes or pulses.
Any language typed
Names, questions and answers in right-to-left scripts such as Arabic read the right way round.
Filling in a procurement questionnaire?
This statement as plain text, ready to paste into a questionnaire or an email, with a link back here.
What we aim for
- Crowdboard aims to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA on the public site, the account pages, the host deck, the TV board, players’ phones and the host remote.
- No outside auditor has tested it yet, so we describe it as partly conforming. The limits we know of are listed below, with what to do about each.
How we check
- New and changed screens are reviewed against WCAG 2.1 AA, with screenshots at phone and laptop sizes, before they ship.
- On 22 October 2026 we ran axe-core’s WCAG 2.1 A and AA checks on every public page; the sign-in, account, team, billing, results and survey pages; and a whole game on the host deck, the TV board, two players’ phones and the host remote, through the lobby, the face-off, pass or play, a round, the round’s end, the Lightning Round and Ask the room. We fix what it finds.
- By hand, we check pages with a keyboard alone, at 320 px wide (400% zoom), with the wider text spacing WCAG 1.4.12 asks for, with Reduce motion on, and in older smart-TV and phone browsers.
- Automated checks find only some problems, and people who use a screen reader, switch access or speech input every day haven’t tested a game yet. If that’s you, we’d like to hear how it goes.
Keyboard
- Every control on the site, the deck, the phones and the remote is a standard button, link or form field, so it works from a keyboard, and shows clearly when it has focus.
- The host deck has shortcuts to reveal answers, mark strikes, award the bank, run the Lightning Round and undo. They never fire while you’re typing in a box. The one-key ones can be turned off under Keys on the deck, so speech input can’t set them off by accident; Ctrl+Z still undoes.
- A phone’s buzzer works with Enter or Space as well as a tap.
Screen readers
- Players’ phones announce what just happened, such as a buzz going through, a face-off won or a round’s result, without moving focus. The buzzer says whether it’s live.
- The host deck announces phones waiting to be let in and the Lightning Round’s answer checks. The network check announces its result.
- Every form field has a label. Public and account pages each have their own title, one main heading and headings in order, and public pages have a link to skip to the content.
Seeing the game
- Text and controls met WCAG AA contrast on every screen we checked.
- Nothing relies on colour alone: strikes are X marks, scores are numbers, and states are said in words.
- Pages zoom, and phones can pinch-zoom. At 320 px wide nothing scrolls sideways, apart from wide tables in the account pages, which scroll on their own.
- With Reduce motion on in the device’s settings, the board’s answers appear without flipping, and nothing shakes or pulses.
- Text people type, in any language, shows in its own direction, so names, questions and answers in Arabic or Hebrew read correctly.
Sound
- Sounds play only on the TV board, and only after someone there turns sound on. Everything a sound marks also shows on screen: a strike shows a large X, a revealed answer appears on the board, and the Lightning Round clock counts down.
- There is no speech or video, so nothing needs captions.
Known limits, and what to do
- Buzzing in is a race, so it is timed by nature. A player who can’t race can share a phone with a teammate, or the host can buzz in for their family from the deck.
- The Lightning Round has a clock. The host starts, pauses and resets it, and can type in the answers a player says out loud.
- The TV board is made to be seen across a room. The host reads each question out loud, and during a round players’ phones show the board close up.
- Joining by QR code needs a camera. Anyone can type the room’s four-letter code at crowdboard.app/play instead.
- The host deck is laid out for a laptop or a bigger screen. On a phone, the host remote runs the game.
- The app’s own words are in English for now. What people type can be in any language.
Tell us, or ask for a report
- If something gets in your way, write to support@crowdboard.app. Say what you were doing, on which device and browser, and any assistive technology you use.
- If your organisation needs an accessibility conformance report, such as a VPAT, ask us at the same address.
Hosting help explains the deck’s keys and how players join, and Security and your data answers a security team’s questions. Anything else: write to support@crowdboard.app.