Accessibility

Our approach

Vela measures stress through heart rate variability on Apple Watch. Understanding your own body should not depend on how you see, so accessibility is treated as a core feature: the guiding principle is that a blind user can check their stress level, explore their history, read their weekly insights and configure the app completely on their own.

Supported on Apple Watch

• VoiceOver. Every element has a meaningful label, value and hint. Charts are exposed as Audio Graphs, so stress history can be explored by sound with the Digital Crown.
• Larger text. The interface uses Dynamic Type throughout. Compact displays, such as the stress score ring, offer the Large Content Viewer.
• Dark interface. Vela's interface is dark by design on every screen, with no bright flashes.
• Differentiate without color. Stress levels are always reinforced with a number and a word — never color alone. Charts add zone lines when “Differentiate Without Color” is enabled.
• Sufficient contrast. All text meets the WCAG AA contrast ratio (4.5:1 or better) against the dark background.
• Reduced motion. Animations are disabled or replaced with static alternatives when “Reduce Motion” is on. Vela also honors Reduce Transparency and Bold Text.

Vela contains no audio or video content, so captions and audio descriptions do not apply.

How we verify it

Every screen runs through Apple's automated accessibility audits — checking labels, contrast, tap target sizes and text scaling — as part of the app's test suite, alongside manual VoiceOver review. These checks run again whenever the interface changes, so accessibility does not regress silently between versions.

Feedback

If anything in Vela is hard to use with assistive technology, that is a bug. Please write to xaviercampsnovi@gmail.com — accessibility reports are prioritized for the next release.