Accessibility statement

Our standard

Surbee works toward the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA, published by the W3C. We apply it to the surveys people answer, the app people use to build them, and this website.

Surbee is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. That means some parts do not yet fully meet the standard. The gaps we know about are listed under Known limitations below, so you know where to expect a problem.

Taking a Surbee survey

Most people who meet Surbee meet it as a respondent, so this is where we have put the most work. Every survey published on Surbee includes the following, whatever its design:

• Every question has a label that assistive technology reads out, along with its description and whether it is required
• Required questions are marked with an asterisk, explained at the top of each page that has one, and announced as required by screen readers
• Single choice, multiple choice, rating scales, NPS, yes or no, matrix, Likert and image choice questions use real radio buttons and checkboxes, so they work with a keyboard, screen readers, switch access and voice control
• If you miss a required question, the survey says how many need an answer, moves you to the first one, and reads out its error message
• Moving to a new page announces the page number and places you at the top of the new page
• The progress bar reports which page you are on
• Ranking questions have move up and move down buttons as well as drag and drop, and each move is announced
• Signature questions let you type your signature instead of drawing it
• File upload questions can be reached and opened with the keyboard
• Focus is always visible, drawn in the survey's own text colour so it stands out against the survey's background
• If a survey's colours are too low in contrast to read, Surbee replaces them with a readable colour automatically
• Pinch to zoom is never disabled, and survey pages reflow to fit small screens
• Animations are reduced or removed when your device asks for reduced motion
• A Listen button at the top of every survey reads the page aloud, highlights each part as it is read, reads each new page, and reads a question when you move to it

Using a keyboard in a survey

• Tab and Shift+Tab move between questions and buttons
• Arrow keys move between the options of a single choice question, a rating scale, or one row of a matrix
• Space ticks or unticks a checkbox
• Enter or Space presses a button, such as Next or Submit
• The skip link at the top of every page jumps straight to the survey
• Alt+Shift+R starts or stops reading aloud on the Surbee website and app, once read aloud is turned on

Time limits

Survey creators can set a time limit, which is common for tests and assessments. When a survey has one, the time left is shown at the top of the page and screen readers announce it at 5 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds and 10 seconds remaining.

If a time limit makes a survey hard for you to complete, contact the person or organisation that sent you the survey. They can change or remove it. You can also write to us and we will pass the request on.

Content written by survey creators

Surbee builds the structure of each survey, and the person who created it writes the words, chooses the images and sets the colours. Some things only they can get right, such as describing an image in its alternative text, or writing questions in plain language.

If a survey's content is hard to use, contact its creator first. If you cannot reach them, or they do not respond, tell us and we will follow up.

Guidance for survey creators

• Write alternative text for every image that carries meaning, and leave it empty for decorative images
• In image choice questions, give each option a text label that describes what the image shows
• Keep question labels short and specific, and put extra detail in the description
• Only set a time limit when timing matters to the results
• Give embedded videos captions
• Write the survey in one language where you can, since the survey does not yet let you mark which language it uses

Using the Surbee app and website

The builder, dashboard, help centre, developer console and this website follow the same standard. They have a skip to main content link, a visible keyboard focus ring, labelled controls and form fields, dialogs that keep and return focus correctly, and status messages that screen readers announce. Animated backgrounds can be paused and stay still when your device asks for reduced motion.

Read aloud reads any page, or just the text you select, and highlights each part as it goes. Turn it on from the accessibility options on this page, from Settings in the Surbee app, or from the account menu in the admin panel, then use the player in the corner of the screen or press Alt+Shift+R.

Known limitations

• Custom code blocks and design mode pages contain HTML written by the survey creator, and Surbee cannot check them
• Surveys published with the older sandbox format, before the current block editor, have not been brought up to this standard
• Surveys are marked as English, so screen readers may mispronounce surveys written in other languages
• Videos embedded from other services depend on that service's player and captions
• Charts in the analytics dashboard are visual, and not every chart has a text or table equivalent yet
• Some motion on the marketing site can only be paused from controls that appear on hover or keyboard focus
• Read aloud uses the voices built into your browser and device. Some browsers send the text to an online voice service to speak it, and the available voices and languages vary by device

We are working through these, and this page will change as we fix them.

Assistive technology and response checks

Surbee's response quality checks look at how a survey is answered. Screen readers, voice control, switch access and other assistive technology can change that pattern. If you think a response of yours was treated as low quality because of how you use assistive technology, contact us and we will look into it.

Report a barrier

If something in Surbee is hard or impossible for you to use, we want to know. Email [email protected] with "Accessibility" in the subject line, and tell us the page or survey link, what you were trying to do, and the device, browser and any assistive technology you use.

We read every report. If you need information from a survey or from this site in another format, ask and we will help.