Flash Reference

Accessibility

We want every student and instructor to be able to use Flash Reference, including people who use a keyboard, a screen reader, magnification or speech input.

Our goal

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA in the Flash Reference app:

  • the flash card viewer students use from their course or website;
  • the deck picker instructors use in their LMS;
  • signing in and creating an account;
  • the instructor dashboard, card editor and results;
  • the admin pages and billing.

This statement doesn't cover Flash Reference's public website and help pages.

Where we are

Flash Reference partially conforms to WCAG 2.2 Level AA: most of it meets the standard, and some parts don't yet. Our accessibility conformance report goes through every success criterion.

How we checked

  • Automated checks. Our automated browser tests run axe-core's WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA rules on:
    • The student flash card viewer: flipping, marking, multiple choice, review, and its settings
    • The deck picker an instructor opens from their LMS
    • Sign in, create an account, forgot password and reset password, including with errors
    • The instructor dashboard, deck list, new deck, card editor (and its deck settings) and results pages
    • The admin home, users (and the invitation dialog), decks, settings and billing pages
    • The page a student sees when a deck link has expired
  • Keyboard. The browser tests also use these features with the keyboard alone:
    • Studying a deck: flipping, moving between cards, bookmarking and the settings dialog
    • Choosing a deck in the deck picker: the tabs, searching and sending a deck to the LMS
    • Opening, reordering and deleting cards in the card editor
    • Skipping to the main content on the instructor, admin and billing pages
  • Small screens and zoom. The tests check the viewer, deck picker, sign-in pages and card editor 320 pixels wide, and that flash card text grows with the browser's text size.
  • Contrast of controls. The tests measure the edges of form fields, checkboxes, radios and toggles on these pages.
  • Review. We reviewed each part of the app against every WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA success criterion.

We haven't yet tested Flash Reference with screen readers or with people with disabilities. We plan to, and we'll update this statement when we do.

Known limitations

  • Instructors choose each deck's text and background colors, and Flash Reference doesn't check that they have enough contrast.
  • Images on flash cards need alt text from the instructor. The card editor asks for it; without it, the viewer says "Image (no description)".
  • Cards are read as English unless the instructor sets the deck's language.
  • The card editor's pop-up formatting toolbar comes from a third-party editor and hasn't been fully evaluated.

Flash Reference also appears inside, or links to, services with their own accessibility: your LMS or website, and Stripe's checkout and billing portal.

Tell us about a problem

If something in Flash Reference doesn't work for you, or you need information in another format, contact us on our support page. Tell us the page and what happened, so we can fix it.

This statement was last updated in October 2026.