Accessibility

The shared statement for every free app on this site.

These apps are built so that a missing bit of care never gets between someone and the joy of using them. Accessibility is a requirement here, not a finishing touch — a design that shuts people out is treated as broken, the same as a crash, and fixed the same way.

What we aim for

Every app targets WCAG 2.2 level AA. That's the bar the work is measured against, and much of it is checked automatically on every change so it can't quietly slip.

What that means in practice

• Color is never the only signal. Anything shown with color is also shown with text, a shape, a symbol, or position — so it still reads in grayscale and for color-blind users.
• Contrast is measured, not eyeballed. Text and control contrast is computed against the WCAG formula and enforced as an automated build check that fails the release if a value falls short.
• Everything works from the keyboard, with a clearly visible focus outline on whatever you're on.
• Motion is optional. If your device asks for reduced motion, animations step aside.
• Real controls, real dialogs. Buttons are buttons, dialogs trap focus and close on Escape, icon-only controls carry text labels, and touch targets are sized to be tapped.
• Light and dark are both first-class, each tuned to hold contrast in its own right.
• State changes are announced, so a screen reader hears when something loads, updates, or fails.

Where we're still working

Honesty matters more than a clean claim, so here's the truth of it:

• Automated and headless testing catches a large share of issues but not all of them — hands-on testing with assistive technology is ongoing.
• A few rich interactions are genuinely hard to make fully accessible and are still being improved: the pinch-and-pan maps, the photo-editing canvas, and the augmented-reality sky view.
• In some of the apps, text is still sized in fixed pixels. Zooming the page works and layouts hold up when you do, but raising only your device's default text size may not change anything yet. Moving to type that follows that setting is on the list.
• None of the apps has had a formal third-party accessibility audit yet.

None of that is a reason to stop — it's the list of what's next.

Which apps this covers

Everything below is covered by every commitment above.

• Frame — where and when to photograph which birds
• Photo Pointer — a map of places worth shooting
• Clear Horizons — astronomy planner
• Photo Studio — infrared editing and focus stacking
• Photo Field Tools — capture-time calculators for the field
• Quietkeep — a planner that brings back everything you put in
• ND Toolbox — tools for naming what's going on inside
• Intersecting Parallels — perspective drawing
• fauxplane — airliner instruments driven by your device's own sensors
• print-tracker — 3D print jobs, filament and models
• MoleBridge — stoichiometry worked one step at a time
• Thalweg — depth, tide and flow for four Central Valley rivers

If an app of mine is missing from that list, that is an oversight rather than an exclusion — the commitments above apply to all of them. Tell me and I'll fix both the app and the list.