Accessibility

The standard we work to

We build Hand & Seal so that people can use it whatever way they use the web — with a keyboard, a screen reader, a larger text size, a phone held in one hand. The standard we hold our work to is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.

This page covers the website: the public pages, a notary’s own page, the help center, the web app a notary runs their business in, and a company’s desk. It says what we have done and checked, and what we know is missing. It is not a claim that every page meets every part of the standard.

What we have done

• September 24, 2026. We ran an automated scan (axe-core, with its WCAG 2.1 A and AA rules and its best-practice rules) over 16 public pages and every signed-in page of the web app, at desktop and phone widths. It found problems, we fixed them, and the scan then found none.
• September 29, 2026. After the help center was added, the scan was run again over every screen we could reach — at desktop, tablet and phone widths, in light and in dark. It found three more problems: a button whose words were too faint in light mode, a table with an unnamed column, and a link that did not look like one. Each was fixed, with a test that fails if it comes back. A fourth finding — the size of one link’s touch area on five help pages at phone width — we could not reproduce.

The September 24 work also gave every page of the web app one main region, headings that run in order and a “Skip to content” link at the top, and made a table that is too wide for its page scroll from the keyboard.

The same scan is part of the check of every screen that follows a batch of changes. An automated scan finds only some kinds of barrier, so it is where we start — not proof that none is left.

These are checked by tests that every change to the code has to pass:

• The text colours of the site and the app meet a contrast of 4.5 to 1 against the backgrounds they sit on, in light and in dark — the small status labels included.
• In the help center, the bar’s button, the “Skip to content” link and the button for the look you chose meet the same contrast; and a link inside a line of coloured words is underlined, so it does not rest on colour alone.
• The letters we send keep that contrast in a mail app’s dark mode.
• The bar at the top of every public page begins with a link that skips to the page’s content, and its menu button says whether the menu is open.
• Every table in the help center names each of its columns, so a screen reader can say which column a cell is in.

What is not ours

• Paying by card or bank transfer happens on Stripe’s own page, and a notary sets up card payments in a form Stripe supplies. How those work with a keyboard or a screen reader is Stripe’s to answer for. Tell us all the same if one stops you.
• Signing in with Google or Apple shows Google’s or Apple’s own window.
• What other people put here — a notary’s own words and photo on their page, a document a company sends with an order — is theirs, as they made it.

The directory is a list

Finding a notary never depends on a map. The directory is a list: each notary’s town, about how far they would come, when they are free and what it is likely to cost, in words. A notary’s own page has one map, of the area they travel to — and says the same beside it, in words: the distance, and the towns within reach.

Tell us about a barrier

If something here is hard or impossible for you to use, we want to know. Write to support@handandseal.app, or use Contact support. It helps to say:

• the page’s address, or what you were trying to do;
• what happened, and what you expected;
• your browser and device, and any assistive technology you use — a screen reader, voice control, magnification.

A person reads every message, and we answer by email, usually within two business days.

This statement

Written on October 5, 2026, from our own testing — a self-evaluation, not an outside audit. We change it when what it says changes.