Accessibility Statement

Accessibility is not a feature we intend to add at the end. It is a property of a product that is either there or is not, and on a product built out of video, audio, and live performance it is harder to get right than on most. We would rather publish an honest account of where we are than a reassuring one.

So this page is written the way our other legal pages are written: it says what is true. That includes a section of things that do not work, which is longer than the section of things that do.

We are working toward WCAG 2.2 Level AA — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium — across the website and the portals, and toward the equivalent platform guidance on mobile.

We do not claim to conform to WCAG 2.2 at any level. No formal accessibility audit of Cr8tivehub has been carried out, by us or by anyone else, and no automated or manual conformance testing has been completed. A conformance claim describes a tested state. Ours is untested, so we make no claim, and you should not read anything on this page as one. When an audit has been done we will publish what it found — including what it found against us — and state a conformance level then, with the date it was measured.

• cr8tivehub.com — the public marketing website, including these legal pages.
• The Cr8tivehub mobile app — on Android, and on iOS when it is released.
• accounts.cr8tivehub.com — the account and billing portal.
• agency.cr8tivehub.com — the agency portal.

It does not cover content that users upload. A portfolio video somebody else posted without captions is outside our control, though section 5 explains what we intend to do about the fact that we currently give them no way to add any. It also does not cover third-party pages you are handed off to — a payment page, an app store listing, or the identity-verification provider's hosted page — which are operated by those companies under their own accessibility policies.

Each of the following is a deliberate choice in the code of the public website and can be checked directly:

• A declared page language. Every page declares English, so a screen reader pronounces it with the right voice rather than guessing.
• Real landmarks and a real heading order. Pages are built from semantic regions — a banner, a main region, an article, a footer — with one first-level heading and headings nested in order beneath it, so that a screen-reader user can jump through a long legal document by heading instead of reading it end to end.
• Labelled navigation. Where a page has more than one group of links, each group carries its own name, so they are distinguishable when listed out of context.
• Text that reflows instead of breaking. Layouts use relative sizing, so enlarging text or zooming in reflows the page rather than clipping it. Wide content — the pricing and disclosure tables in the Terms, for instance — scrolls inside its own container, so the page body never scrolls sideways underneath you.
• Decorative images marked as decorative. Brand marks and store badges that repeat adjacent text are hidden from screen readers rather than read out twice.
• No cookie banner, no interstitial, no modal trap. We use only strictly necessary cookies, so there is no consent overlay to dismiss and nothing that can capture keyboard focus on arrival. Our Cookie Policy explains why.
• Legal pages that work without JavaScript. This page, the Terms, the Privacy Policy, the PAIA manual and the rest are rendered as plain documents on the server. They are readable, and their links work, with scripting unavailable or blocked.
• Status messages announced as status messages. Where a form reports success or an error — the enquiry form and the report form — the message is marked so that it is announced rather than silently appearing on screen.

These are the barriers we know about. The list is not the result of an audit — an audit would almost certainly find more — but each entry has been confirmed.

• Uploaded video and audio have no captions or transcripts. This is the most serious gap on the platform and it affects the core of the product. We do not generate captions, and — the part that is ours to fix first — a person uploading a portfolio item is given no field in which to supply captions, a transcript, or an audio description. A portfolio item currently carries a title and a description and nothing else. Until that changes, a Deaf or hard-of-hearing visitor gets no access to the content of a portfolio video at all.
• Uploaded images have no alternative-text field. For the same reason, there is nowhere for an uploader to describe an image for someone who cannot see it. A screen reader reaching a portfolio image today has only the item's title and description to work with, and those are written for a different purpose.
• Live streaming has no live captions. Live streaming is not yet enabled for general use. When it is switched on it will, as things stand, carry no live captioning and no transcript afterwards.
• No skip-to-content link. A keyboard or switch user must currently tab through the header on every page before reaching the content. Landmarks make this survivable for a screen-reader user who knows how to jump between them; it is a real cost for a sighted keyboard user, who has no such shortcut.
• Reduced-motion preferences are not honoured. We do not currently detect the operating-system setting that asks for reduced motion, so animated and transitioning elements play regardless of that preference.
• Colour contrast has not been measured. The interface is predominantly a dark theme with secondary and tertiary text in progressively lower-contrast greys. Contrast ratios across those tiers have not been measured against the WCAG thresholds, and we expect some of them to fail. There is no high-contrast mode and no light theme on the website.
• Mobile screen-reader support is partial and untested. Accessibility labelling exists in some parts of the mobile app and not in others, and it has never been applied systematically. No full pass with TalkBack or VoiceOver has been carried out, so we cannot tell you which screens work and which do not.
• The video player has not been tested for keyboard control. We have not verified that every player control is reachable and operable from a keyboard alone, or that its state is announced.
• No testing with assistive technology users. Nothing here has been tested with people who actually rely on assistive technology, which is the only test that finally counts.

In the order we intend to take them, worst harm first:

• Give uploaders somewhere to put a caption file, a transcript, and alternative text, and surface what they provide everywhere the item appears. Nothing else on this list unblocks as many people.
• Add a skip-to-content link and honour the reduced-motion preference. Both are small and neither should have waited.
• Measure colour contrast across the dark theme and fix what fails.
• Do a full screen-reader pass over the mobile app, and keyboard-test the video player.
• Commission an external audit against WCAG 2.2 AA, and publish what it finds.
• Settle how live captioning will work before live streaming is switched on for general use.

We are not putting dates against these here, because a date on this page is a promise to people who have been promised things before. We will update this statement as each one ships.

If something on Cr8tivehub stops you doing what you came to do, we want to know, including if it is already listed above — knowing that a barrier is real for someone changes where it sits in the queue.

Email support@cr8tivehub.com with “Accessibility” in the subject line. If you can, tell us:

• the page, screen, or feature where it happened;
• what you were trying to do, and what happened instead;
• what you were using — browser, operating system, screen reader, magnifier, switch device, or anything else — if you know and are comfortable saying.

None of that is required. A message saying only that something does not work is a message worth sending, and we will come back to you to fill in the rest.

We aim to acknowledge an accessibility report within 5 business days and to come back to you with either a fix or a plan and a timeframe within 20 business days. Where a fix will take longer than that, we will tell you so and offer another way to do the thing you were trying to do in the meantime.

If a barrier is stopping you from doing something specific, ask us and we will do it with you or for you. That includes completing account setup or a profile, retrieving or correcting your information, cancelling a subscription, submitting a report, and making a request about your personal information. Write to support@cr8tivehub.com.

Our legal documents are available in an alternative format on request, where that is reasonably practicable — the same undertaking our PAIA Manual gives for the manual itself. Ask at legal@cr8tivehub.com.

South African law does not yet prescribe a technical accessibility standard for websites and apps the way some other jurisdictions do, which is why this statement names an international standard instead. What South African law does provide is broader: section 9 of the Constitution guarantees equality and prohibits unfair discrimination on the ground of disability, and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000 gives that guarantee effect between private parties, including in the provision of goods and services.

If you believe Cr8tivehub has discriminated against you, please raise it with us first at legal@cr8tivehub.com so that we have the chance to put it right. You are entitled to go instead or as well to the South African Human Rights Commission, or to an Equality Court, and nothing in this statement or in our Terms of Service requires you to come to us first or limits that right.

We will update this statement as barriers are fixed and as new ones come to light, and the “Last updated” date above will reflect the change. An entry disappearing from section 5 means the barrier is gone, not that we stopped counting it.

Cr8tiveHub Digital Studios (Pty) Ltd. Registered in South Africa.