Waavoo delivers real-time captions and translation for live events. Because the whole point of the product is access, we hold the subtitle viewer to the most relevant WCAG 2.1 success criteria, and we measure caption accuracy with the NTR model, the academic standard for live interlingual subtitling. This page states exactly what we have evaluated, how, and what is still pending.
This statement covers the public subtitle viewer (the projection / reading screen at /view/<room>) — the surface where captions are read by the audience, including attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing. It is the surface on which accessibility matters most.
It does not claim conformance for the whole website (marketing pages, operator console, dashboard). WCAG itself does not recommend requiring Level AAA conformance as a general policy across an entire site; we make a scoped, criterion-by-criterion statement instead of a global badge.
Evaluated against WCAG 2.1. Results below are from a code-level audit with computed contrast ratios. Terminology follows VPAT / ITI usage (Supports = conforms).
| Success criterion | Level | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4.4 Resize text | AA | Supports | In-app size slider 24–150 px (default 60); browser zoom not blocked (no maximum-scale). |
| 1.4.6 Contrast (enhanced) | AAA | Supports | Caption text 8.3:1 → 21:1 across all five themes and both preset sets; automatic re-colouring on theme change. UI chrome ≥ 7.4:1. |
| 1.4.8 Visual presentation | AAA | Supports | Text and background selectable (5 themes, light & dark); never justified; default line height 1.50 (adjustable 1.10–1.80). |
| 1.4.10 Reflow | AA | Supports | No horizontal scroll down to 320 px; text wraps (break-word, hyphens). |
| 2.2.3 No timing | AAA | Supports | Live captioning falls under the real-time-event exception; no countdown or session timeout requiring user action. |
| 2.3.2 Three flashes | AAA | Supports | Nothing flashes > 3×/s (only animation ≈ 0.9 Hz, negligible area); prefers-reduced-motion respected. |
Because criteria 1.4.4 and 1.4.10 have no AAA level, “the relevant AAA criteria” refers to the four AAA criteria above (1.4.6, 1.4.8, 2.2.3, 2.3.2); resize and reflow are met at their highest defined level (AA).
This evaluation combines a static analysis (source-code review, relative-luminance contrast calculation, passing type-check) with an automated runtime verification run against staging (headless Chromium + axe-core):
One check remains human-only and is still pending: an aural pass with an actual screen reader (NVDA / VoiceOver) judging how the live stream is announced. Until then we phrase the homepage claim as “built to the criteria”, not “certified”, and will update this statement, with its date, when that is done.
None of these block the criteria above (they concern advanced customisation, not the delivered defaults). We list them for transparency:
Accurate captions are themselves an accessibility requirement. We assess quality with the NTR model (Romero-Fresco & Pöchhacker), the recognised academic standard for interlingual live subtitling — the right model for translated captions, unlike NER, which is for same-language respeaking.
Measurement conditions (single representative sample; not a guarantee across all languages or conditions):
We are extending the assessment to more language pairs and conditions; this page will report the broader results as they are produced.
If you hit an accessibility barrier in the viewer, tell us and we will help and fix it. Please include the device, browser and assistive technology you were using.
Waavoo is operated by 9379-4162 Québec inc. This statement reflects the state of the product on the date above and is reviewed as the viewer evolves.