Accessibility

We work to make LazShift usable by as many people as possible, including people who use a screen reader, navigate by keyboard alone, rely on high contrast or magnification, or have turned motion off. Accessibility is treated as part of whether a change is finished, not as a pass somebody makes afterwards.

We target Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.

There is no United States regulation that sets a technical accessibility standard for a private business's website. What there is, is the Americans with Disabilities Act and a body of case law in which courts have consistently used WCAG 2.1 AA as the measure. We work to it for that reason, and because it is the most useful yardstick available.

We describe ourselves as partially conformant: most of the Service meets the standard, and section 4 says where it does not.

• Colour contrast, measured rather than assumed. Every piece of text on the public pages was checked against its actual rendered background — including glass panels, gradients and both light and dark appearance — rather than against the values in a stylesheet. The greys used for secondary text sit at 5.6:1 or better against the surfaces behind them, where the standard asks for 4.5:1.
• Forms say what is wrong, and where. A rejected field is marked as invalid, points at the message explaining why, and takes focus, so the reason is available to a screen reader and the fix is one keystroke away.
• Every field has a real label. Not a placeholder standing in for one — placeholders disappear the moment you type.
• Images carry alternative text, and decorative ones are marked as decorative so a screen reader skips them rather than reading a filename.
• Keyboard focus is always visible, and the app has a keyboard shortcut layer and a command palette for reaching most screens without a pointer.
• Motion is optional. Everything that animates is listed in a reduced-motion block and resolves to its finished state — visible, not hidden — when the device asks for less movement.
• It works on a phone. No page scrolls sideways at 375 px; wide content such as the schedule grid scrolls within itself instead of dragging the page with it.

These are the things we know about and have not fixed yet.

• Small controls inside the schedule grid. The day-note buttons in the weekly grid are about 15 pixels tall, below the 24 pixel minimum WCAG 2.2 sets for a target. The grid is dense on purpose — it is a week of a whole roster on one screen — and giving those rows more height changes the screen it exists to be. We are working out how to give them a larger touch area without that, and in the meantime every one of them can be reached and operated from the keyboard.
• The schedule grid is a complex widget. It is usable with a keyboard, but it is the part of the product where we are least confident that a screen reader conveys the whole picture — a week, several crews and coverage all at once. If you use one, we would especially like to hear from you.
• Documents you export. Printable schedules and PDF exports are generated from the on-screen layout and are not tagged for accessibility. The same information is available in the app itself and in the CSV export, which is plain tabular data.
• We have not had an independent audit. Everything above is our own testing. We will say so here when that changes.

If any part of LazShift is unusable for you, email support@lazshift.com and say what you were trying to do and what got in the way. You do not need to know why it is broken, or use the right words for it.

We aim to reply within five business days. Where a fix will take longer than that, we will tell you when to expect it and — this is the part that matters on the day — get you the information you needed another way in the meantime, whether that is a schedule read out to you, sent as plain text, or exported in a form that works with your tools.

If your employer administers your LazShift account, you can also ask them; an administrator can change most things about your record directly. You do not have to go through them to reach us.

If you have contacted us and are not satisfied with the response, you may file a complaint with the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, which enforces the Americans with Disabilities Act, at civilrights.justice.gov. We would rather you told us first and gave us the chance to fix it.