Accessibility
The Future Files wants every visitor to be able to find, play and read every episode on thefuturefiles.com, whatever device, browser or assistive technology they use. This statement explains the standard we work to, what we have done, what we know is not right yet, and how to tell us about a problem.
Our standard
Our target for this website is conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Conformance status: partially conformant. Most of the site meets WCAG 2.2 Level AA; the parts that do not yet are listed under Known limitations.
We use WCAG 2.2 AA because it meets or exceeds the technical benchmarks referenced by the accessibility laws and standards that apply to websites like ours, including:
- the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title III, and the U.S. Department of Justice's 2024 rule for Title II web content, which adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA;
- Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act (the Revised 508 Standards incorporate WCAG 2.0 Level AA);
- the European standard EN 301 549 and the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882), whose requirements for e-commerce services apply from 28 June 2025;
- the California Unruh Civil Rights Act and New York State and New York City human rights law.
What we have done
On 29 September 2026 we reviewed the site against WCAG 2.2 Level AA using automated testing (axe-core 4.10, in desktop, phone-width, light and dark views) and manual checks with the keyboard, zoom and text-spacing, and fixed what we found. The site now has:
- a “Skip to main content” link as the first thing the keyboard reaches;
- a clearly visible focus outline on every link, button and control, in both the light and dark themes, that is never hidden behind the player bar;
- every control reachable and operable with the keyboard alone — the menu, sidebar, episode list, filters, cart, date-range picker and the audio player — with Escape closing any open menu or dialog and focus returning to where you were;
- names for every icon-only button (play, pause, shuffle, previous, next, mute, search, menu, cart, close) and their on/off state announced to screen readers;
- announcements for what starts playing and for the number of results after a search;
- seek and volume sliders that work by keyboard, by a single click or tap anywhere on the bar, and that report the current time;
- text and icon colours that meet the WCAG contrast ratios (4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for icons and focus outlines) in both themes;
- a switch to turn off the single-key keyboard shortcuts (Space, K, J, L), which also never fire while you are typing or on a focused control;
- a switch to turn off animations, and the site follows your device's “reduce motion” setting automatically;
- text alternatives for images, labels for every form field, a page title that describes each page, and layouts that reflow at 320 pixels wide and at 200% zoom without sideways scrolling;
- sign-in that never asks you to solve a puzzle or remember a code: you can use a passkey, Sign in with Apple, Google, or an emailed link, and password managers and pasting work everywhere.
Known limitations
- Checkout. Payment happens on Shopify's hosted checkout, which we do not control. Shopify publishes its own accessibility commitments; if you have trouble there, contact us and we will complete your order with you another way.
- Archived audio episodes. The episodes are archived audio recordings. Instead of separate captions, each episode has a searchable text transcript with timestamps. The transcripts are produced by speech recognition, so they can contain errors, and a few episodes do not have one yet. Ask us and we will prioritise a corrected transcript for any episode.
- Episode titles on narrow screens are shortened with “…” to keep each row on one line; the full title is read out by screen readers and shown in the player and on the transcript page.
- Pages we link to but do not host — the App Store, Apple and Google sign-in, and pages on other domains (for example the live stream page) — are outside this review.
- Charts in the Markets section (for signed-in account holders) are visual; their key figures are also shown as text, but not every chart has a full text or table equivalent yet.
The desktop app
The Future Files desktop app has its own Accessibility panel, with settings and conformance notes for the app. This statement covers the website.
Tell us about a problem
If something on this site does not work for you, or you need content in a different format (for example a transcript by email, or larger print), please tell us — we want to fix it.
- Email: accessibility@thefuturefiles.com
- Please include the page address, what you were trying to do, and the device, browser and any assistive technology you use, if you can. None of that is required.
We aim to reply within 2 business days, and to fix the problem, or give you the content another way, within 10 business days. If a fix will take longer, we will tell you when to expect it.