Accessibility by Default

The story

Comics are a visual medium that has rarely been accessible on screens. PanelWave puts alt text, captions, transcripts, panel descriptions, hotspot labels and content warnings into the format itself, all localized. The player turns them into labelled controls, complete keyboard traversal, reduced-motion behaviour that also stops video autostart and camera glides, and reader settings for manga mode and high contrast. The CMS collects the information in the normal editing flow and blocks publishing on missing captions.

Why now

The European Accessibility Act applies to digital products from mid-2025, and publishers are looking for formats that carry accessibility metadata natively rather than as an afterthought. Automated axe-core checks run in the player's test suite on every change.

Key facts

• Every accessibility string in the format is a localized string, so descriptions follow the reader's language.
• Hotspots sit in the tab order and announce their labels; non-current canvas panels are inert so focus is never trapped.
• The authoring tool itself has a focus-visible standard, dialog focus traps, ARIA on the structure tree and a high-contrast theme.
• Open items are documented publicly, including two placeholder toolbar toggles and planned preflight checks.