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Heard Accessibility Statement

Document key: heard-accessibility
Version: 1.0.0
Last updated: September 5, 2026
Effective date: September 5, 2026
Canonical URL: https://discoverheard.com/accessibility

Heard wants its mobile app, website, policies, support, safety reporting, and account-deletion tools to be usable by people with disabilities.

Our target

Heard is working toward Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA as an engineering baseline for public web pages and equivalent accessible interaction patterns in the mobile app.

This statement does not claim that Heard is fully conformant with WCAG, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or every other accessibility requirement. No independent assistive-technology audit or conformance report has been completed yet.

Design and engineering practices

Heard's public pages should use:

  • semantic headings, landmarks, lists, labels, and form instructions;
  • complete keyboard operation with visible focus;
  • readable contrast, text resizing, zoom, and responsive reflow;
  • meaningful link and control names;
  • text alternatives for informative screenshots and images;
  • captions or transcripts for Heard-produced video and audio when needed to understand the material;
  • accessible validation errors, confirmations, and status messages;
  • reduced-motion support where motion is not essential; and
  • no PDF-only version of a policy, deletion form, report form, or other essential flow.

The mobile app should support platform accessibility APIs, screen-reader labels and hints, logical focus order, dynamic text where practical, sufficient target sizes and contrast, and accessible recording, playback, settings, safety, and deletion controls.

Audio-specific accessibility

Heard is audio-first. The automated transcript used for private moderation is not stored, shown to creators or listeners, or available as a caption. Heard therefore does not currently claim that user-created posts are captioned or have accessible transcripts. Before creator publication begins, Heard must evaluate and document the effective-communication and accessibility measures appropriate to user audio, including whether captions, transcripts, creator-provided text, accommodations, or another equivalent-access approach is required and supportable.

Before launch, Heard should document what equivalent access is available for:

  • navigation and playback controls;
  • titles, creator identity, categories, duration, and playback state;
  • lock-screen and external-device controls;
  • recording/import status, elapsed time, upload progress, and errors; and
  • legal, safety, support, and account-deletion information.

Current limitations and planned improvements

Heard is still working to:

  • test every public legal page and form with keyboard-only navigation and common screen readers;
  • test reflow, zoom, contrast, focus visibility, error recovery, and reduced motion;
  • provide useful alt text for website and app-store screenshots;
  • test the deletion form without a mouse and with form-error announcements;
  • test in-app recording, the system document picker and representative cloud-file providers with MP3, AAC-in-M4A, supported PCM WAV, and unsupported compressed WAV, imported-audio validation/error announcements, playback, creator-policy links, initially unchecked creator-attestation controls, block/mute, report, and deletion flows with keyboard controls, VoiceOver, and TalkBack as applicable;
  • complete a fact-specific effective-communication review for user audio and implement and accurately disclose the required equivalent-access or accommodation approach; and
  • activate a monitored accessibility-feedback contact and remediation workflow.

Third-party services

Some parts of Heard depend on app stores, device operating systems, authentication, and infrastructure providers. Their accessibility is partly outside Heard's control, but Heard will work to choose and integrate third-party services in a way that does not unnecessarily prevent access.

Feedback and accommodation requests

If you encounter an accessibility barrier, contact:

Email: support@discoverheard.com
Subject: Accessibility
Website: Heard Support

It helps to include the page or screen, device and operating system, browser if relevant, assistive technology, what you were trying to do, and the barrier you encountered. Do not include medical details unless they are necessary to explain the requested accommodation.

The support channel is active and operated by Heard's individual publisher but is not staffed 24 hours a day. Heard does not guarantee a response or resolution time.

Updates

Heard will revise this statement as accessibility testing, supported platforms, content formats, and remediation practices change. The version and effective date will appear at the top.