Built for every player

Wizard's Magic Scales is designed so that children can play whatever their eyesight, reading, movement or device. This page says what works, what does not yet, and how to tell us about a problem.

Conformance status

Standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
Target level AA
Status Partially conformant. See Known limitations
Platforms covered The web game at play.wizardscales.co.uk and this website
Last review [Date of a real review to be added. No formal audit has been done]

Visual accessibility

  • Text size. Three sizes: Normal, Large and Extra large.
  • Dyslexia-friendly font. A switch in settings. See Known limitations.
  • Colour modes. Standard, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia and High contrast.
  • Contrast. In the standard colour mode, text meets AA contrast against its background.
  • Not colour alone. Stars use shape as well as colour. Locked worlds use a padlock and a dashed border. Errors use an icon and words.

Motion and animation

  • A "Reduce motion" switch in settings turns off all transitions and animations.
  • The game also follows the reduced motion setting on your device, with no need to change anything in the game.
  • Nothing in the game flashes.

Motor accessibility

  • Keyboard. Every control can be reached with Tab and used with Enter or Space. Arrow keys move between the spell tiles. Escape closes overlays.
  • Touch targets. Controls are built to a 44 by 44 pixel minimum.
  • No time pressure. Story puzzles have no timer. Wrong moves can always be undone with another move.
  • Switch access. Not tested.

Screen reader support

  • Equations are read in words, with each side labelled: "Left side" and "Right side".
  • Game state. Spell tiles announce whether they are selected. Star ratings are read as, for example, "2 out of 3 stars".
  • Structure. Each screen has a heading. Form fields have labels, and error messages are linked to their fields.
  • Decorative art, including the scales animation and world icons, is hidden from screen readers.
  • Tested screen readers. None yet. This support is built to the standard but has not been tested with VoiceOver, TalkBack, NVDA or JAWS.

Audio

The game has no sound. Nothing in it depends on hearing, and there is nothing to mute. The sound switches in settings are marked "Coming soon".

Known limitations

Limitation Who it affects WCAG Status
Pinch-to-zoom is switched off in the game Players who zoom to read 1.4.4 Resize text [Fix planned?]
On a phone held sideways the game shows a "rotate your device" screen and cannot be played Players with a mounted or fixed device 1.3.4 Orientation [Fix planned?]
In High contrast mode, button text has a contrast of 2.7 to 1, below the 4.5 to 1 required Low-vision players, in the mode meant for them 1.4.3 Contrast [Fix planned?]
In Deuteranopia and Tritanopia modes, button text is about 4.0 to 1 and 4.1 to 1 Players using those modes 1.4.3 Contrast [Fix planned?]
The dyslexia-friendly switch does not appear to load the OpenDyslexic font, so it falls back to another font Players with dyslexia None; a broken feature [Fix planned?]
When an overlay closes, keyboard focus does not go back to the button that opened it Keyboard and screen reader users 2.4.3 Focus order [Fix planned?]

Also not yet done: testing with screen readers, testing with switch access, and a check that keyboard focus is clearly visible on every control.

Settings quick reference

All settings are under the settings button at the top of the world map. They save automatically and work without an account.

Setting Options What it does
Font size Normal, Large, Extra large Makes all text bigger
Dyslexia-friendly font On, Off Changes the typeface
Colour mode Standard, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia, High contrast Changes the game's colours
Reduce motion On, Off Turns off animations
Sound effects, Music Coming soon No effect yet

Signed-in players keep their settings across devices, and across the other Spottybear games.

Feedback and contact

If something does not work for you, email accessibility@wizardscales.co.uk. Tell us what you were doing, and what device and browser you use. We reply within 2 working days.

For school procurement

Product name Wizard's Magic Scales
Developer [Legal entity to confirm]
Target WCAG version 2.2
Target conformance level AA
Platforms covered Web browser: Safari on iOS 15 or later, Chrome 100 or later, Firefox 100 or later
Date of last accessibility review [To be added]
Known non-conformances See section 8, Known limitations
Contact for accessibility queries accessibility@wizardscales.co.uk