Accessibility
What we test, what the site does for you, and what to do when something is in your way.
1. What we test, automatically
Accessibility promises are easy to write, so here is what is actually enforced. An automated harness drives every public page of this site, and the main screens of the app, at a desktop width and a phone width — and, in the app, in both of its themes — and fails the run when any page breaks one of these rules:
- Contrast. Text is sampled against the background it actually sits on and must clear the WCAG AA ratios: 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text.
- Heading structure. Every page must have exactly one main heading and no skipped heading levels, so navigating by heading in a screen reader works predictably.
- Touch targets. At phone width, interactive controls must measure at least 40 pixels in their smaller dimension. Links inside running text are the one exception, which WCAG itself allows.
- Images and icons. Every graphic must either carry an accessible name or be explicitly marked decorative, so a screen reader announces what matters and skips what does not.
- Overflow. No page may scroll sideways on a phone.
- Errors. Any error in the browser console fails the check, because a page that is quietly broken can fail anyone at any moment.
A failing check is fixed before the change is published, and the same harness runs against the live site after publishing. This is a routine we keep, not a one-time audit we passed.
2. What the site does for you
Keyboard. Every page begins with a skip link to the main content, and the element with keyboard focus always shows a visible outline. You do not need a pointer to move through the site.
Reduced motion. If your system asks for reduced motion, the ambient geometry holds still and animation stops. You lose nothing by it: motion here is ornament, never information.
Appearance. Theta Mind has one appearance: a dark one. There is no light theme, on this website or inside the app, and no control to switch to one. That is a deliberate design decision about how Theta Mind looks, and it does have a cost — some people read dark text on a light background more comfortably, and we are not offering that. What we do instead is hold the dark palette well clear of the minimum: body text measures about 9.8:1 against the page and the quietest labels about 6:1, where the standard asks for 4.5:1. Your browser’s own reader mode and zoom both work here. If reading this site is hard for you, please write to us at support@thetamind.now — that is exactly the kind of defect we want to hear about.
Sound is optional. The generated audio can be turned off, and a session can be practiced in silence. Nothing about verification or credit depends on your hearing anything.
3. Honest limits of the verification pathways
Presence Mode uses a camera, and a camera has inherent requirements: a device with a working camera, and enough light for it to see you. Everything is processed on your own device and nothing is uploaded, but the requirement itself is not a design choice we can remove. It is what verifying presence with a camera means.
Heart + Presence and EEG are not part of the web version. Connected devices are being built for the Theta Mind app. On the web there is one pathway, Presence Mode, and it needs no hardware beyond the camera you already have, so no member is waiting on a device to take part.
When a pathway is not available to you, the software says so plainly rather than failing silently. If a message you hit does not explain itself, that is exactly the kind of report section 5 is for.
4. Where we stand on WCAG
The thresholds in our automated checks come from WCAG 2 Level AA: its contrast ratios, its heading semantics, its guidance on target size. That is the standard we aim at and test against.
We do not claim a formal WCAG conformance level, and we have not been certified by an external audit. Automated checks catch a real and useful class of problems, and they cannot experience a page the way a person does. We treat them as the floor, not the ceiling, and we treat a report from a real person as worth more than a passing test run.
5. Tell us what is in your way
If any part of Theta Mind is hard for you to see, hear, operate, or understand, write to us. Say what you were trying to do, what happened instead, and, if you are willing, what device, browser, and assistive technology you were using. That mailbox is read by a person, and an accessibility report is treated as a defect.