Accessibility Statement

1. Our Commitment

SoilStack is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We are continually improving the user experience for everyone and applying relevant accessibility standards.

SoilStack is operated as a sole proprietorship by Heath Hoffman, based in Indiana, United States. We believe that gardening is for everyone, and our goal is to make garden planning tools accessible to all users regardless of ability.

2. Conformance Status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. They define three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.

SoilStack targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance. WCAG 2.2 is the current published standard from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative; Level AA is the standard most consumer-facing websites aim for and is what United States courts most commonly reference in private-sector accessibility cases.

Current status: partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. "Partially conformant" means that some parts of the content do not yet fully conform to the standard. We have identified the limitations listed in Section 6 below and are actively working to address them.

We have chosen to disclose this status honestly rather than claim full conformance we cannot independently verify. This is consistent with guidance from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and the United States government's accessibility programs.

3. Assessment Method

The current accessibility status of SoilStack was assessed through internal self-evaluation against the WCAG 2.2 Level AA success criteria. This evaluation included:

• Review of the application's HTML structure for semantic correctness and proper landmark regions
• Review of color contrast ratios against WCAG AA thresholds (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and non-text contrast) following the deliberate color palette overhaul of both light and dark modes shipped in May 2026
• Review of form labeling and error identification patterns
• Review of ARIA attributes on modal dialogs, accordion controls, and interactive components
• Manual keyboard navigation testing of core flows (sign-up, login, plant library browse, dashboard interaction)
• Verification that dynamic UI updates (such as task completion or weather prompt dismissal) do not break keyboard focus

We have not yet engaged an independent third-party accessibility auditor. A third-party audit is on our planning list for after the application's first paid feature launch. Until that audit is performed, the conformance assessment in this statement reflects our own good-faith review and may not catch every accessibility issue.

4. Accessibility Features

SoilStack includes the following accessibility features. Where a feature is described as "verified," we have specifically tested it; where it is described as "supported" or "designed for," we have built it according to the relevant standard but have not formally tested every case.

Visual Design

• Color Contrast (verified): Text and interactive elements meet WCAG AA contrast requirements (4.5:1 minimum for normal text, 3:1 for large text and non-text UI elements). Both light mode and dark mode were deliberately rebuilt in May 2026 with contrast verification as part of the redesign.
• Dark Mode (verified): Full dark mode support reduces eye strain and helps users with light sensitivity. The dark mode uses a Material 3-inspired 4-step surface ladder with explicit contrast pairing rather than auto-inverted colors.
• Theme Preference Persistence: Your light/dark mode preference is stored in your browser's local storage and persists across visits.
• Reduced Motion Support (verified): The theme-change animation between light and dark modes honors the prefers-reduced-motion media query, so users who have set their system to minimize animation will not see the transition fade.
• Browser Zoom (supported): The interface uses relative units and responsive layout, so browser zoom is supported. We have not formally tested every page at every zoom level.
• No Color-Only Information (verified): We do not rely solely on color to convey information — icons, text labels, and shape differences accompany color indicators (for example, task priority, plant type pills, and disease risk states all combine color with text or icon).

Navigation & Interaction

• Keyboard Navigation (designed for): Interactive elements are built using semantic HTML and event-delegated handlers so they can be reached with the Tab key and activated with Enter or Space. Modal dialogs, accordion controls, and inline editors are designed to be keyboard-operable. See Section 6 for surfaces that may need additional keyboard verification.
• Focus Indicators (verified): Visible focus states are applied to all keyboard-focusable elements in both light and dark modes. Our Content Security Policy implementation removed inline event handlers in May 2026, which improved focus retention because all event handling now uses standard DOM patterns.
• Anchor Navigation: Long-form pages (such as this Accessibility Statement, the Privacy Policy, and the Help Center) include a table of contents with in-page anchor links that allow keyboard users to jump directly to specific sections.
• Consistent Navigation: Navigation structure remains consistent throughout the authenticated application (header layout, primary tabs, settings location) and throughout the public marketing pages.

Content Structure

• Semantic HTML: Pages use proper heading hierarchy (a single <h1> per page, <h2> for major sections, <h3> for sub-sections) and HTML5 landmark elements (<header>, <nav>, <main>, <footer>) for screen reader navigation.
• ARIA Labels: Icon-only buttons (such as the settings gear, dark mode toggle, and modal close buttons) include descriptive aria-label attributes. Modal dialogs use role="dialog" and related ARIA attributes where appropriate.
• Form Labels: All form inputs have associated <label> elements or, where layout requires it, aria-label or aria-labelledby references.
• Error Identification: Form validation errors are presented as text near the affected field and include the field name in the error message; they are not communicated by color alone.
• Plant Type Pills: The 12 plant type pills used throughout the plant library (tomatoes, peppers, herbs, greens, brassicas, squash, beans & peas, root vegetables, berries, flowers, cucumbers, melons) and additional category pills (legume, cover crop, root_vegetable) use both color and text label so they are distinguishable without color perception.

Media & Images

• Alt Text: Content images include descriptive alternative text. Plant photographs are sourced under Creative Commons licenses with attribution metadata.
• Decorative Images: Images that exist purely for visual decoration are marked with empty alt="" attributes or are applied as CSS backgrounds so they are properly hidden from assistive technology.
• Decorative Background Video: The homepage features a short, looping background video of a tomato growing on the vine. This video is purely decorative, contains no meaningful audio content, and does not auto-play with sound. The video has no narrative or informational content; nothing essential to understanding the page is conveyed by the video alone.
• Animated Weather Overlays: The dashboard weather strip can display animated weather condition effects (rain, snow, fog). These animations are visual augmentation only — the same information is presented as text in the weather strip, forecast cards, and weather prompts.

5. Technologies & Compatibility

The accessibility of SoilStack relies on the following technologies working with the user's web browser and any assistive technologies installed:

• HTML5
• CSS (including media queries for prefers-color-scheme and prefers-reduced-motion)
• JavaScript (used for interactivity; the site requires JavaScript for most authenticated features)
• WAI-ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes

These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used.

Modern browser required. SoilStack is built against modern web standards and is designed for current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Browsers more than a few major versions out of date may not support all of the application's interactive features and accessibility behaviors.

Assistive technology testing. We have performed informal testing using browser-built-in accessibility tools and keyboard-only navigation. We have not performed comprehensive testing against the full matrix of screen readers (such as NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver). If you use a specific assistive technology and encounter a barrier, please contact us using the feedback channel in Section 8 — specific reports from real users are extremely valuable to us.

6. Known Limitations

While we strive for accessible design throughout SoilStack, we have identified the following limitations. We are actively working to address them, and we encourage you to report any additional barriers you encounter.

• Interactive Maps: The USDA zone map (onboarding and zone landing pages) and the dashboard garden map use the Leaflet.js mapping library, which has limited screen reader support for the map interface itself. The information conveyed by these maps is also available in text form: USDA zone information is shown numerically and named in the onboarding flow, the settings page, and on each zone landing page; garden area information is available as text cards on the dashboard My Garden tab.
• Animated Weather Overlays: The animated weather condition effects on the dashboard (rain, snow, fog rendered via HTML5 Canvas) have no screen reader equivalent because they are purely visual augmentation. All weather information conveyed by these effects is also presented as text in the weather strip, forecast cards, and weather prompts.
• Modal Dialogs: Several recently-added modal flows — the duplicate planting prompt, the plant nickname inline editor, the recovery candidates panel, and the add-plant and remove-plant modals — have been verified to function with the keyboard but have not yet been comprehensively tested against screen readers. If you rely on a screen reader and encounter difficulty with any of these flows, please contact us and we will prioritize remediation.
• Plant Image Coverage: Not every plant in our 685-plant library has a custom plant photograph yet. Where a plant photograph is absent, the page still functions and conveys all growing information as text, but the visual identification benefit of a plant photo is missing. Adding photographs to the top 80 most-referenced plants is on our active roadmap.
• PDF Exports: Exported garden plans, recipe sheets, and task calendars are generated as PDFs that may not include the full set of tags required for screen reader accessibility (such as proper heading structure or table relationships). For the most accessible experience of the same content, we recommend the web version of these views.
• Skip-to-Main-Content Link: SoilStack does not yet implement a dedicated "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable element on the page (a common pattern that lets keyboard users bypass the navigation on every page). This is a known gap and is on our roadmap.
• Comprehensive Screen Reader Audit: We have not yet conducted a comprehensive audit of every page and flow with a screen reader (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver). This is planned as part of the third-party audit referenced in Section 3.

7. Third-Party Content

SoilStack uses some third-party services and content that may have their own accessibility characteristics:

• Google Fonts (Fraunces, Source Sans 3): Typography is loaded from Google Fonts, with system font fallbacks if the Google Fonts request is blocked or fails.
• CARTO Map Tiles: Map imagery is provided by CARTO and is rendered as image tiles by the Leaflet library.
• Leaflet.js: Interactive maps use the open-source Leaflet library, loaded from the unpkg CDN.
• National Weather Service: Weather data is sourced from the NWS API and presented through our own interface (text-based weather strip, forecast cards, and weather prompts).
• Amazon Associates / Seeds Now (Refersion): Affiliate links lead to third-party retailer websites whose accessibility is outside our control. These links are clearly labeled "(paid link)."

We choose third-party tools with accessibility in mind, but we cannot guarantee that they fully conform to accessibility standards. Where a third-party component has known accessibility limitations (such as interactive maps), we provide alternative text-based access to the same information.

8. Feedback & Contact

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of SoilStack. If you encounter an accessibility barrier, find that a feature does not work with your assistive technology, or have suggestions for improvement, please let us know:

When you contact us, it helps if you can include:

• The URL of the page where you encountered the issue
• A description of what you were trying to do
• The assistive technology you were using (screen reader, keyboard-only, voice control, screen magnifier, etc.) and, if known, its version
• Your browser and operating system

This information is optional, but it helps us reproduce and fix the issue faster.

Alternative formats. If you need information that is published on SoilStack in an alternative format (for example, a plain-text version of a plant growing guide, or a structured-data export of a task calendar), please ask. We will work with you to provide accessible content.

If you are not satisfied with our response. If you contact us about an accessibility issue and we do not resolve it to your satisfaction, you may also wish to contact the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (ada.gov) regarding Americans with Disabilities Act concerns, or your state's Attorney General's office regarding consumer protection concerns.

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This statement was prepared on May 12, 2026, in connection with a review of SoilStack's privacy, terms, and accessibility documentation. It will be reviewed and updated as we make accessibility improvements to the website and at least annually.