Accessibility

Last updated: February 11, 2025

At PII Crawler, we believe that security tools should be usable by everyone. We are committed to making our application accessible to people of all abilities and are actively working toward conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA.

Our Current Foundation

PII Crawler already incorporates a number of accessibility best practices:

• Semantic HTML throughout the application, including proper use of landmarks (header, nav, main, footer), heading hierarchy, and structured data tables with thead and tbody
• Form labels linked to their corresponding inputs so screen readers can identify fields correctly
• Keyboard support for core navigation and form interactions
• Visible focus indicators on interactive elements
• Responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and devices
• Clear feedback with loading states, success messages, and error notifications

What We Are Working On

We are actively investing in accessibility improvements across the application. Below is an overview of the areas we are addressing, organized by priority.

Improving Screen Reader Support

• Skip navigation - Adding a "Skip to main content" link so keyboard and screen reader users can bypass repeated navigation on every page
• Live region announcements - Making dynamic content updates (such as scan progress, filter results, and status changes) announced to assistive technologies using ARIA live regions
• Better icon descriptions - Auditing all icons and images to ensure decorative elements are hidden from screen readers and meaningful elements have proper text alternatives
• Flash message announcements - Ensuring success and error notifications are announced immediately when they appear

Strengthening Keyboard Accessibility

• Focus management in overlays - Trapping keyboard focus within modal dialogs and slide-in panels so users cannot accidentally interact with obscured content
• Full keyboard support for all interactive components - Ensuring custom components like the file browser and filter controls are fully operable with a keyboard alone
• Grouped form controls - Wrapping related checkbox and radio button sets in fieldsets with legends for clearer context

Enhancing Visual Accessibility

• Color contrast audit - Reviewing all text and background color combinations to meet WCAG AA minimum contrast ratios (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text)
• Color independence - Ensuring information conveyed by color (such as status indicators) is also communicated through text or icons
• Reduced motion support - Respecting the prefers-reduced-motion system setting by reducing or disabling animations for users who need it

Improving Data Table Accessibility

• Table captions - Adding descriptive captions to data tables so screen readers can convey the purpose of each table
• Scope attributes - Adding scope attributes to header cells so the relationship between headers and data cells is clear
• Pagination announcements - Making page navigation controls and current page state accessible to assistive technologies

Better Form and Error Handling

• Inline error association - Linking validation error messages directly to the fields they relate to using aria-describedby and marking invalid fields with aria-invalid
• Required field identification - Ensuring required fields are programmatically identified, not just visually marked

Future Plans

We are also exploring the following longer-term improvements:

• High contrast and dark mode support for users with low vision or light sensitivity
• Comprehensive landmark and region labeling so screen reader users can quickly orient themselves across all pages
• Automated accessibility testing integrated into our development process to catch regressions early

Feedback

Accessibility is an ongoing effort, and we welcome your input. If you encounter any barriers using PII Crawler or have suggestions for improvement, please contact us at [email protected].