Accessibility

Our commitment

VA Claim Commander is built for veterans, many of whom live with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress, vision loss, and tremor, and for the accredited representatives who work their claims. Accessibility is part of the product, not an add-on. We build to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, whose technical standard for web content is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA, and we measure against WCAG 2.1 AA where it goes further.

What that means in practice

• Text you can read. Body text is 16 pixels or larger, helper text no smaller than 12 pixels, and every color pairing meets at least a 4.5:1 contrast ratio against its background.
• Keyboard throughout. Every control can be reached and operated with a keyboard, and the focused control is visibly outlined.
• Screen readers. Pages use landmarks and headings in order, form fields carry programmatic labels, images that convey meaning have text alternatives, and decorative ones are hidden from assistive technology.
• Touch and tremor. Interactive controls are at least 44 pixels tall, with the primary actions at 48.
• No trap, no timer. Nothing requires a mouse, hover, precise timing, or a gesture; layouts reflow for 200% zoom and for a phone.
• Documents we produce. Generated PDFs use real text, not images of text, so they can be read aloud and searched.

How we test

Every release passes an automated accessibility check in the build (contrast rules run as unit tests; touch targets are checked in the QA suite), and the public site and the advocate application are audited with axe-core against the WCAG 2.0 A and AA rule sets on their live production pages. We also test by hand with keyboard-only navigation and a screen reader on the flows that matter most: signing up, uploading records, reading a decision, and submitting to VA.

The most recent full audit was run on September 6, 2026 across the home page, the pricing and professional pages, this policy set, and the advocate application (the caseload, work queue, deadlines, billing, and the client record). Every issue it found was corrected in the same release: several text colors below the 4.5:1 ratio, two form controls without a programmatic name, one hidden element that could still receive keyboard focus, and links in running text that were distinguishable by color alone.

Known limitations

• Embedded previews of official VA forms are rendered by the browser's PDF viewer; their accessibility depends on that viewer. The fields you fill are always available as native, labeled form inputs beside the preview.
• Uploaded records are the veteran's own scans. We extract their text so they can be searched and read aloud, but a poor-quality scan may extract imperfectly.
• Third-party components we rely on (sign-in and payment) are maintained by their vendors; we choose vendors that publish their own accessibility conformance.

Tell us if something is in your way

If any part of VA Claim Commander is difficult to use with assistive technology, email support@vaclaimcommander.com with the page and what happened. A person reads every message, we answer within two business days, and we fix accessibility defects as priority work. Advocates can also use Support inside the application.