Project Name
iOS App WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance Delivered to Unblock Government, Education, and Healthcare Procurement for a Large EdTech Platform
A large EdTech platform delivering video-based learning to universities, corporate training programmes, and professional certification bodies was losing institutional contracts at the procurement stage. Government bodies, public universities, and healthcare organisations mandate WCAG 2.1 AA compliance as a prerequisite for vendor shortlisting, and the iOS app could not pass an accessibility audit. Accessibility gaps were an active sales blocker, not a UX concern. Applying its AI-First approach, Ksolves delivered a structured accessibility engineering programme implementing a persistent accessibility settings system, a custom caption engine, and full VoiceOver coverage – taking the app from non-compliant to certification-ready.
- WCAG Non-Compliance Blocking Procurement: The iOS app lacked the accessibility features required by WCAG 2.1 AA. Without a passing accessibility audit, the platform could not be shortlisted for government, public education, or healthcare contracts regardless of feature quality.
- No Customisable Caption Support: The app had no mechanism for learners to adjust caption appearance. Font size, contrast, background opacity, and position were fixed and non-configurable, a direct WCAG failure for users with visual or hearing impairments.
- Incomplete VoiceOver Coverage: Interactive elements throughout the iOS app were missing accessibility labels, had incorrect traits, or provided no meaningful description to the VoiceOver screen reader, making the app effectively unusable for blind and low-vision learners.
- Accessibility Preferences Not Persisted: Any accessibility settings a user configured were lost on app restart because no persistence layer existed for accessibility state. Users had to reconfigure caption size, contrast, and reduced motion on every session.
- Dynamic Type Not Respected: The app's typography did not scale in response to the iOS Dynamic Type system setting. Learners who relied on larger text system-wide received no benefit from that setting inside the platform.
- No Accessibility Review in the Development Cycle: Accessibility had not been integrated into the engineering workflow. New features were shipping without accessibility review, and the backlog of violations was growing with every release.
Ksolves delivered a structured accessibility engineering programme targeting every WCAG 2.1 AA failure identified in the iOS app, prioritised by procurement impact and implemented as platform-level systems rather than per-screen patches. The governing principle was that accessibility compliance must be durable, not a one-time pass.
- Persistent Accessibility Settings Layer: Built a user-level accessibility preferences system using NSUserDefaults, storing caption appearance preferences, reduced-motion settings, and contrast preferences across sessions. Users configure once and the app respects those preferences on every launch.
- Custom Caption Engine: Designed and implemented a native caption rendering layer using UIKit and AVFoundation that supports font size adjustment, foreground and background colour selection, caption position control, and opacity settings. All configurable by the user and persisted across sessions.
- Full VoiceOver Coverage: Conducted a systematic VoiceOver audit across all interactive elements in the iOS app, implementing accessibility labels, traits, hints, and grouping logic for every screen. Blind and low-vision users can now navigate the full feature set without sighted assistance.
- Dynamic Type Integration: Updated the app's typography system to respond to the iOS Dynamic Type accessibility setting, ensuring text scales appropriately across all supported size categories without breaking layout or truncating content.
- Accessibility Review Integration in CI: Embedded Accessibility Inspector checks into the development workflow, creating a repeatable gate that prevents new accessibility regressions from being shipped with future feature releases.
Technology Stack
| Category | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | UIKit |
| Accessibility | VoiceOver / Accessibility Inspector |
| Architecture | NSUserDefaults |
| Platform | AVFoundation |
| Methodology | WCAG 2.1 AA Standard |
“We were losing institutional deals at the procurement stage because of accessibility gaps we knew existed but had not prioritised. Closing those gaps did not just fix a compliance issue – it directly unblocked sales conversations that had stalled for months.”
– VP Product or Head of Platform Engineering.
A large EdTech platform losing institutional contracts at the procurement stage because its iOS app could not pass a WCAG 2.1 AA audit was taken from non-compliant to certification-ready through Ksolves web and mobile development services. Persistent accessibility settings, a custom caption engine, full VoiceOver coverage, Dynamic Type integration, and CI-embedded accessibility review were all delivered as durable platform-level systems. The compliance gap blocking government, education, and healthcare procurement was closed. New features now ship with accessibility validation built in – so the certification posture holds with every release.
Is WCAG Non-Compliance Costing Your Platform Institutional Deals at the Procurement Stage?
