Accessibility Statement

Cairn is built for people pursuing federal work, and federal work is open to everyone. We are committed to making the Cairn web and mobile applications usable by people with disabilities, including people who use screen readers, magnification, voice control, or the keyboard alone.

Conformance target

We measure Cairn against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA — the standard referenced by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and used by courts interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Cairn is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA: most of the product meets the standard, and the areas that do not are listed below and tracked for repair.

What we do to keep Cairn accessible

• Semantic HTML with landmarks, headings in order, and labelled form controls, so assistive technology can describe the page.
• Full keyboard operation of navigation, dialogs, menus, and the proposal workspace, with a visible focus indicator.
• Text and interface colors chosen against the WCAG AA contrast ratios, and no use of color as the only way information is conveyed.
• Meaning carried by text: icons and decorative artwork are hidden from assistive technology instead of being announced as noise.
• Layouts that reflow on small screens and at high browser zoom rather than forcing horizontal scrolling.
• Live regions on the status and error messages we have implemented them for, so the outcome is announced and not shown only as a moving spinner.
• Respect for the operating system's reduced-motion preference.

Known limitations

Despite our efforts, some parts of Cairn are not yet fully accessible:

• Documents you upload. Solicitations, attachments, and other files come from third parties (including federal agencies) and may be scanned images or untagged PDFs that we cannot make accessible on your behalf.
• Dense data views. The pipeline board and some wide tables are demanding to navigate with a screen reader; simpler list equivalents are the fallback while we improve them.
• Charts and visual summaries. Some graphics still rely on an adjacent text summary rather than a full text alternative.
• Announcements. Live-region coverage is not yet complete, so a few background operations finish without announcing themselves to a screen reader.
• Third-party components. Parts of the sign-in, payment, and feedback experiences are provided by vendors, and their accessibility depends partly on them. We report defects upstream.

Assessment approach

Cairn is evaluated by internal review during development — keyboard-only navigation, browser zoom, and screen-reader checks of the areas being changed. We have not yet commissioned a third-party audit, added automated accessibility testing to our build, or published a VPAT/Accessibility Conformance Report; if your organization needs a VPAT for procurement, contact us and we will tell you where we stand.

Alternatives and accommodations

If any part of Cairn keeps you from doing your work, we will find another way to get it done — including providing content in a different format or walking through the task with you directly. Requesting an accommodation costs you nothing and does not affect your subscription.

Feedback

We welcome reports of accessibility barriers. Email [email protected] and tell us the page or feature, what you were trying to do, and the assistive technology, browser, and operating system you were using. We treat accessibility reports as priority defects: we will confirm we received yours, tell you what we found, and tell you when we expect to fix it.