Accessibility Statement

Our conformance target

OAV.io targets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA. WCAG 2.2 AA is the current de-facto standard referenced by U.S. Department of Justice ADA guidance, courts hearing Title III web accessibility cases, and the broader accessibility community. We treat conformance as a continuous effort rather than a one-time certification — every new surface we ship is designed with WCAG 2.2 AA in mind, and we periodically audit existing surfaces against the same standard.

Recent audit and remediation

The consumer-facing surface at app.oav.io underwent an internal engineering accessibility audit and remediation against WCAG 2.2 Level AA criteria on July 28, 2026. The audit covered market-search pages, vehicle detail pages, dealer pages, methodology and citation pages, forms (dealer sign-in, dealer signup, consumer inquiry, dealer reviews), and the site-wide navigation and footer. This work was performed by OAV engineering; formal third-party auditor validation and scoped assistive-technology testing (NVDA / VoiceOver) remain on the known-limitations list below.

Improvements shipped in the audit remediation include:

• Skip-to-main-content link on every consumer page, visible on keyboard focus
• Screen-reader-announced deal-quality verdicts on every listing (Great Deal, Fair Price, Overpriced, Unscored, and Below Range) with full context — comparable count, thresholds, and reason when the confident verdict is suppressed
• Screen-reader-announced Market Price Position gauge — a full spoken description of price, market range, comparable count, and verdict on every vehicle detail page
• Color-contrast improvements across ~90 files (WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast Minimum) — the previous 2.85:1 muted-text ratio raised to 4.83:1 which passes AA
• Form-label associations and accessible names on every public input control (WCAG 1.3.1, 3.3.2)
• Focus management on modal dialogs — focus trap while open, Escape closes, focus returns to the trigger element on close (WCAG 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.4.3)
• Heading hierarchy corrected on the vehicle detail page so screen readers walk the outline H1 → H2 → H3 in DOM order (WCAG 1.3.1)
• Decorative separators and inactive-state icons hidden from assistive technology so they are not read aloud

Display preferences panel

Every consumer page on OAV.io includes a floating "A" button in the bottom-right corner labeled "Display preferences." The panel lets you customize the visual presentation of the site to fit your needs — larger text, higher-contrast muted text, reduced motion for animations and transitions, and enhanced focus outlines for keyboard navigation. Preferences save to your browser and persist across visits.

This panel is a supplementary convenience layer that sits on top of the underlying WCAG 2.2 AA remediation described above. It is not a substitute for OS-level or browser-level accessibility settings (screen readers, magnifiers, system high-contrast themes) — those continue to work independently and correctly. If any preference in the panel interferes with your existing assistive technology, turn it off; please report the interaction so we can fix it.

Continuous compliance — automated CI checks

Every pull request to OAV.io is now checked against an accessibility rule set before it can be merged to production. The rule set is based on the widely-used eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y project and enforces 20+ WCAG 2.2 AA-relevant rules at error level (missing alternative text, unlabeled form controls, ARIA misuse, missing HTML language, invalid roles, tab-order violations, and more). A pull request that introduces any of these issues fails continuous integration and cannot be promoted to the production site. This machine-enforced gate is designed to keep the accessibility posture from regressing as we ship new features.

What we design for

• Keyboard-only navigation across every page (Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Space, arrow keys where applicable).
• Skip-to-main-content link at the top of every consumer page, visible on keyboard focus.
• Screen-reader-friendly labels on interactive controls, deal badges, and status indicators (aria-label, role=status where the visible text is terse).
• Sufficient color contrast for text and interactive elements (WCAG 2.2 SC 1.4.3 and 1.4.11).
• Semantic HTML — headings in reading order, landmark regions, lists as lists, buttons as buttons.
• Text-scaling up to 200% without loss of content or functionality.

Assistive technology we test with

We validate accessibility improvements against the following combinations, chosen to represent the assistive-tech stacks in widest real-world use:

• NVDA (Windows) with Chrome and Firefox
• VoiceOver (macOS + iOS) with Safari
• JAWS (Windows) with Chrome — spot-checked on institutional-research surfaces
• Keyboard-only navigation across all major browsers

Known limitations

OAV.io is under continuous development. We are aware of the following areas that may not fully meet WCAG 2.2 AA today and are actively working to close each gap:

• Third-party data providers. Vehicle imagery, listing text, and dealer content are supplied by licensed third-party data partners. Alt-text completeness on partner-supplied imagery is a work in progress; we route consumer-facing dealer photos through an opt-in provenance layer, and vehicle imagery is being migrated to direct OEM stock photography with clean chain-of-title.
• Institutional research surfaces (research.oav.io). The gated business-to-business research portal at research.oav.io was not included in the July 2026 consumer-surface audit. Complex data visualizations on this surface (Pressure Index charts, monthly sales trends, geographic heat maps) render as SVG line and bar charts and do not yet have full table-form equivalents. We prioritize remediation of this surface based on institutional-customer accessibility requirements.
• Administrative surfaces. The internal administrator dashboard at /admin is used by OAV operators only, is authentication-gated, and was not included in the consumer-surface audit. It may not meet WCAG 2.2 AA in all respects.

Third-party content acknowledgment

OAV.io aggregates and analyzes vehicle listing data supplied by licensed third-party data partners. Dealer content, listing photos, and vehicle-history flags originate with those providers or with the selling dealers themselves. OAV works to surface this content in an accessible way, but the underlying data quality (including photo alt-text, dealer-supplied descriptions, and history-report semantics) is provider-controlled.

How to report an accessibility issue

If you encounter an accessibility barrier on OAV.io, or if assistive technology behaves unexpectedly on any page, please reach out and we will prioritize a fix. Include the page URL, the assistive technology you were using, and a brief description of what you were trying to do.

Email: support@oav.io

We aim to acknowledge accessibility reports within two business days and to communicate remediation timelines within five business days.

Statement of continuous improvement

Accessibility is not a checkbox for OAV. It is a design principle that shapes how we build the answer-engine layer for the U.S. vehicle market. As we ship new surfaces — market pages, dealer profiles, institutional research dashboards — WCAG 2.2 AA is the baseline every surface is measured against. This page will be updated as we close known gaps and as the accessibility standards themselves evolve.