Exposure's Accessibility Commitment

How Exposure approaches accessibility for public sites and stories

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Exposure is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We continuously improve the user experience for everyone by applying relevant accessibility standards and best practices.

Our recent accessibility work has focused especially on the viewer-facing experience of Exposure sites and stories: public story pages, member sites, navigation, dialogs, and other common reading and browsing flows.

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Conformance Standards

Exposure sites and stories are designed with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA in mind, especially for public viewer-facing experiences.

Accessibility is an ongoing effort, and we continue to audit and improve our implementation over time. We also work to support Section 508 and ADA accessibility expectations.

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Built-in Accessibility Features

Every Exposure site includes the following accessibility features by default:

Navigation & Structure

• Skip navigation links — Allow keyboard users to bypass repetitive content and jump directly to main content

• Semantic HTML structure — Proper heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3) and landmark regions (nav, main, footer)

• ARIA attributes — Enhanced screen reader compatibility throughout all pages

• Focus indicators — Visible focus states for keyboard navigation

• Improved dialogs and menus — Public subscribe modals, warning dialogs, and shared menus include better keyboard and focus handling

• Focus return support — Closing dialogs and menus returns focus to the control that opened them when possible

Keyboard Navigation

All interactive elements on Exposure sites are accessible via keyboard:

Key	Action
Tab	Move to next interactive element
Shift + Tab	Move to previous interactive element
Enter / Space	Activate buttons and links
Escape	Close dialogs, modals, and lightbox
← → (in Lightbox)	Navigate between photos
← → (on Story Map)	Navigate between stories
Space (on Story Map)	Fly to random story

Viewer-Facing WCAG 2.2 Improvements

Recent improvements to public Exposure sites and stories include:

• Better skip links and landmarks — Shared layouts now provide clearer ways to jump to main content

• Improved menu accessibility — Shared navigation, mobile menus, and account menus have better button semantics and expanded/collapsed state handling

• More accessible dialogs — Subscribe flows, warning dialogs, and shared modals now provide better keyboard support and focus management

• Clearer control labels — Shared search, share, and subscribe controls now have stronger accessible names and labels

• Reduced hidden-focus issues — Closed menus and popouts are less likely to expose off-screen controls to keyboard users

Images & Media

• AI-powered alt text — Automatic alternative text for photos on paid plans: short descriptions on Pro and Pro Plus, detailed descriptions on Business. AI never replaces alt text that the author writes

• AI-powered video cover captions — Automatic screen-reader-only captions for looping cover videos, generated by AI for Business subscribers. Pro Plus subscribers can add captions manually. These captions are hidden from sighted visitors and announced only to assistive technology.

• Descriptive captions — Support for detailed image captions and metadata import

• Video accessibility — Autoplay videos are muted by default with visible controls

Motion & Animations

• Reduced motion support — Exposure respects the user’s operating system preference for reduced animations (prefers-reduced-motion)

• Animation controls — Authors can disable story animations in their site settings

Responsive Design

• Zoom support — Content remains accessible at 200% zoom or higher

• Mobile optimization — Touch-friendly targets and responsive layouts

• Flexible text sizing — Text scales appropriately across all devices

Account sign-in accessibility

Two-factor authentication is an optional account protection for members. Setup includes a text key if you cannot scan the QR code. You can paste an authenticator or recovery code into a single labeled field. The code fields include an autocomplete hint for browsers and password managers that support it. Recovery codes can be copied or downloaded.

See Set up and manage two-factor authentication. If you encounter a barrier, use the Exposure contact form and describe your browser and assistive technology. Do not send your password, setup key, or recovery codes.

Account authentication is outside the scope of our current viewer-focused conformance report. These interface features do not establish a separate conformance rating.

Accessibility Statement Page

Every Exposure site now includes an /accessibility page with:

• Detailed accessibility features list

• Keyboard navigation reference

• Known limitations disclosure

• Contact information for reporting issues

• Links to accessibility resources

Visit your site’s accessibility page at: yoursite.exposure.co/accessibility

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Advanced Accessibility Widget

For users who want to go even further, Exposure Pro Plus includes an Advanced Accessibility Widget powered by UserWay. This widget provides additional features:

• Increase text size and spacing

• Toggle legible fonts

• Adjust cursor size

• Stop all animations

• Highlight links

• Read the page aloud

• Enhanced keyboard navigation

• Multiple contrast modes for visual impairments

Learn more about the Advanced Accessibility Widget →

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AI Alt Text and Video Cover Captioning

On paid plans, Exposure uses AI to write alternative text for photos. On Business, it also writes screen-reader captions for looping cover videos.

• Pro and Pro Plus: one short sentence per photo

• Business: a detailed description per photo, and a caption for a looping cover video

The AI text follows WCAG guidelines. It names the main subject and the important visual details, and it does not start with phrases like “Image of”. Authors see which text AI wrote in the story editor, and they can edit or remove it. AI never replaces text that the author writes or clears. Exposure sends requests only to AI providers that do not keep them and may not train on them.

Cover Video Captions

When a Business subscriber uploads a looping cover video, a short accessibility caption is generated automatically. This caption is:

• Hidden from sighted visitors (screen-reader-only)

• Announced by assistive technology via aria-describedby

• Editable or replaceable at any time in the Cover Design Options panel

• Cleared automatically when the cover video is replaced or removed

Pro Plus subscribers can type cover video captions manually in the same panel.

Authors control AI text in Settings → AI Powers. See Add alt text descriptions to story photos.

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Assistive Technology Compatibility

Exposure sites are tested and compatible with:

• Screen readers: VoiceOver (macOS/iOS), NVDA (Windows), JAWS (Windows)

• Screen magnification software

• Speech recognition software

• Keyboard-only navigation

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Known Limitations

While we strive for full accessibility, some content may have limitations:

• User-generated content — Some images may lack alt text if not provided by the author

• Embedded content — Third-party embeds (YouTube, Vimeo, maps) may have varying accessibility

• PDF documents — Downloadable PDFs may not be fully accessible

• Custom styling — Author-customized color schemes may not always meet contrast requirements

• Custom code — If a site owner injects custom code, that code may introduce accessibility issues outside Exposure’s defaults

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Reporting Accessibility Issues

If you encounter accessibility barriers on an Exposure site, you can:

1. Contact the site author via their contact page (if enabled)

2. Contact Exposure Support at support@exposure.co

When reporting issues, please include:

• The web page URL where you encountered the issue

• A description of the problem

• The assistive technology you were using (if any)

• Your contact information for follow-up

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Resources

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2

• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

• Section 508 Standards

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Need Help?

If you have questions, reach out to us at support@exposure.co. We’re happy to help!

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Need help?

Use the Exposure contact form.