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OntheBoards.tv

Summary

Accessiblü conducted a high-level accessibility evaluation of OntheBoards.tv, a curated streaming platform featuring contemporary performance films from artists working in dance, theater, music, and experimental forms. The platform is made available to library patrons through University of Washington’s institutional access. The review was conducted using the JAWS 2025 screen reader on Windows 11 with Google Chrome, keyboard-only navigation, and manual inspection, supplemented by automated scanning with axe DevTools, for conformance with select WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria.

The evaluation covered four key page types: the OntheBoards.tv home page, a keyword search results page, the Featured Artists browse page, and the Browse Films page.

OntheBoards.tv offers a visually distinctive interface for discovering and accessing contemporary performance work, with a clear primary navigation structure (Films, Artists, About, Join) and functional skip-to-main-content link. The platform does present landmark regions including banner, main, and content information, which provide a basic structural foundation for screen reader navigation. Social media links in the footer include descriptive labels identifying the destination platform, which is a helpful practice for screen reader users.

That said, the evaluation identified several opportunity areas across all four pages that may create friction for users relying on assistive technologies. The most consistent patterns involve heading hierarchy problems, insufficient color contrast on interactive elements, missing or non-descriptive accessible names on linked images and interactive controls, and keyboard accessibility barriers on the home and films pages. These are foundational patterns that, once addressed, would improve usability across the entire platform rather than requiring page-by-page fixes.

Key Findings

Across all four pages, three recurring patterns account for the majority of opportunity areas identified. First, the platform’s primary interactive color (#3a9dce, a medium blue) does not meet the 4.5:1 minimum contrast ratio when displayed against white backgrounds, yielding approximately 3.04:1. This affects the Search button, category filter labels on the Browse Films page, “View Trailer” and action link text, and the “Featured Film” and “Staff Pick” badge labels. Second, heading hierarchies are inconsistent: the home page announces two H1 headings, the Browse Films page presents three, and search result item titles appear as H3 with no intervening H2. Third, multiple linked images throughout the platform carry empty or absent alt attributes while functioning as the sole navigation mechanism to artist and performance pages.

These issues create meaningful friction for users with disabilities. A screen reader user discovering artists through the Featured Artists page or searching for a specific ensemble would encounter a series of anonymous linked graphics with no descriptive text, making it difficult to determine the destination of a link without activating it. Users would then have to find their way back and repeat the process until they find the destination they are looking for. Keyboard users on the home and films pages encounter links and controls that cannot be reached or activated without a mouse. Resolving these core patterns would meaningfully expand access for library patrons who rely on assistive technologies to engage with the platform.

Top 3 Issues

  1. Insufficient Color Contrast on Interactive Elements and Labels

    • Description: The platform’s primary action color (#3a9dce on white #ffffff) produces a contrast ratio of approximately 3.04:1, falling short of the 4.5:1 minimum required for normal-weight text at standard sizes. This affects the Search button across all pages, “View it now” and “Read more” result links on the search page, “View Trailer” and “Featured Film” labels on the Browse Films page, and category filter text on hover and focus states. The “Featured Film” and “Staff Pick” badge labels also use white text on this same blue background.
    • Impact: Users with low vision who rely on color differentiation to identify interactive elements may have difficulty distinguishing actionable links and buttons from surrounding content. Focus and hover states that fail contrast requirements also affect keyboard users with low vision who depend on visible focus indicators to track their position on the page.
    • WCAG Success Criteria: 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (AA)
       

  2. Heading Hierarchy Inconsistencies Across Multiple Pages

    • Description: The home page contains two H1 headings (“Shifting Contexts” and “Watch world-class performances from today’s most provocative artists”), creating an ambiguous page anchor for screen reader users. The Browse Films page similarly presents three H1 headings (“Browse Films,” “Skeleton Flower,” and “Americana Kamikaze”) at the same level. On the Search page, result item titles are coded as H3 with no H1 or H2 preceding them in the results region, creating an incomplete heading structure.
    • Impact: Screen reader users who navigate by heading to orient themselves to a page will encounter conflicting or missing page-level anchors, making it difficult to determine primary page purpose or content hierarchy. The issue affects all user groups that rely on heading navigation as a wayfinding strategy.
    • WCAG Success Criteria: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A)
       

  3. Linked Images Missing Accessible Names Across Browse and Search Pages

    • Description: On the Search page, all seven result thumbnail images are used as links to artist or performance pages, but each carries an empty alt attribute (alt=""). On the Featured Artists page, artist portrait images used as navigation links also have empty alt attributes. The Browse Films page features film images used as primary navigation elements that similarly lack descriptive text alternatives. In each case, the image link is the only or primary means of navigating to the destination page.
    • Impact: When an image is the only content inside a link, the image's alt text becomes the accessible name for that link. Blind users navigating by link or tab cannot determine the destination of these image links without activating them. The alt=”” null attribute should only be used for decorative images with no links and never for images with links. Users relying on voice control software cannot target image links without accessible names. The combined effect on the search and browse pages is that core discovery workflows become significantly harder to complete without sighted assistance.
    • WCAG Success Criteria: 1.1.1 Non-text Content (A), 2.4.4 Link Purpose (Link Only) (A), 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (A)

Disabilities Impacted

Blind and Low-Vision Users

  • Issues: Screen reader users encounter two H1 headings on the home page and three on the Browse Films page, leaving no reliable page-level anchor for navigation by heading. On the Search and Featured Artists pages, linked thumbnail images carry empty alt attributes, making link destinations unknown without activation. On the home page, the meta-viewport tag disables text scaling (maximum-scale=1), preventing low-vision users from enlarging text on mobile browsers. Multiple navigation landmark regions share the same generic label across all pages, reducing the utility of landmark navigation.
  • Impact: Blind users face the most direct barriers on the search and browse pages, where anonymous linked images represent the primary discovery path for artists and performances. Low-vision users are affected by the platform’s contrast deficiencies on action links and filter labels, and by the disabled text scaling on mobile. Heading structure anomalies affect both groups’ ability to efficiently orient to page content.

Users with Motor Disabilities

  • Issues: On the home page, the homepage slideshow controls—including “Read More” and “View Trailer” links within the rotating carousel—are not reachable by keyboard. The Pause link for the slideshow receives keyboard focus but is hidden from view. On the Browse Films page, the featured film link and “View Trailer” button are not keyboard accessible. Filter category links on the Browse Films page (Classical, Contemporary, Dance, etc.) display no visible focus indicator when navigated by keyboard.
  • Impact: Users who cannot use a mouse will find the featured content carousel on the home page entirely inaccessible, and the primary film browsing and filtering tools on the Browse Films page difficult to navigate. The absence of visible focus indicators on filter links makes keyboard navigation on that page particularly disorienting.

Neurodiverse Users

  • Issues: The inconsistent heading structure across pages—multiple H1s, skipped heading levels in search results, and varying patterns across the four tested pages—reduces the predictability of the platform’s document structure. The inclusion of decorative vertical bar characters (|) within footer link accessible names (e.g., “Home Vertical Bar Help” as announced by JAWS) adds noise to the reading flow. Non-descriptive link labels like “Read more” and “View it now” appearing multiple times on search results pages, without context about which artist or performance they describe, increase cognitive load.
  • Impact: Users who benefit from predictable, consistent page structure may find the heading inconsistencies disorienting across sessions. Repeated identical link labels on the search results page require additional effort to disambiguate, which is particularly challenging for users with attention or processing differences.

Users with Hearing Impairments

  • Issues: No auto-playing audio or video without user control was identified on the tested pages. The platform does feature a video slideshow on the home page, but audio playback was not triggered automatically during testing. No captioning controls or transcript links were present on the Browse Films or home page, though these pages do not themselves play full-length content.
  • Impact: No significant barriers for users with hearing impairments were identified on the four evaluated pages. Captioning and audio description considerations would be more relevant to the individual film viewing experience, which was outside the scope of this evaluation.