July Demo Candidate 0.1 — human accessibility validation packet

Status: NOT a completed human pass. This is a reproducible packet/template for a human tester to run the assistive-technology validation owed by #2041. No human / screen-reader / switch-device testing has been performed by filling out this doc — the fields below are empty on purpose. Filling them in (with repo-safe evidence) is the work #2041 tracks.

Target surface: the member-shell v0 reference client (web/member-shell/), the human surface of July Demo Candidate 0.1. DEV/DEMO member surface only — not a production or pilot accessibility certification.

Commit this packet was prepared against: origin/main 2b148e72.

1. What is already proven (automated) vs what this packet owes (human)

The automated / rendered-structural floor is cleared and recorded in `JULY_DEMO_CANDIDATE_0.1_ACCESSIBILITY_WALKTHROUGH.md` (PR #2039). Reproduced for this packet at 2b148e72 (fixture mode, headless Chromium via the committed web/member-shell/a11y-walkthrough.cjs):

Automation verifies structure, not perception. It cannot confirm that a real screen-reader conveys the flow understandably, that a switch user can complete the task, that focus is findable by a human, or that the rendered surface looks right at 200% zoom / in RTL. Those are the four owed ORGANIZER_MEMBER_ACCESSIBILITY_GATE.md categories this packet is for:

• 3.2 Screen-reader / non-visual access
• 3.3 Low-vision access (human 200% zoom + external contrast-tool confirmation)
• 3.5 Keyboard / switch / non-pointer access (keyboard + visible focus already automated; switch owed)
• 3.9 Assistive-technology compatibility (≥1 screen reader + ≥1 non-mouse input; record which AT)

2. Environment to record (fill in before testing)

3. Setup + launch (exact, fixture mode, no live node)

# from the repo root ( cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)" )
( cd web && python3 -m http.server 8099 --bind 127.0.0.1 & )   # serve the web/ root
# then open in your browser:
#   http://127.0.0.1:8099/member-shell/?mode=demo            (fixture mode, no JWT)
#   http://127.0.0.1:8099/member-shell/?mode=demo&lang=qps-ploc
#   http://127.0.0.1:8099/member-shell/?mode=demo&lang=ar

Fixture mode renders the participation spine as read views (standing → action cards → completion receipt → plain-language evidence) with no live mutation and nothing signed. The live seed → discharge → verify loop is a separate sealed run (operator evidence outside the repo) — do not re-run or re-claim it here. To reproduce the automated floor, see the Method section of the walkthrough doc.

4. Owed-category checklists (mark each item, record observation)

Use: Pass / Pass with documented follow-up #<issue> / Blocked / N/A (reason).

A. Keyboard-only navigation (3.5)

(Automation already confirmed: 16 focusable reached, all with a visible outline, no axe focus violation. A human still confirms order/comprehension/no-trap.)

• Every interactive control (mode nav, language selector, Start-local-demo if shown, each "Show technical detail / Show evidence detail" disclosure, every link) is reachable by Tab. → ___
• Tab order matches reading order / is understandable. → ___
• Focus is visibly findable on every stop (not a thin gray underline). → ___
• No keyboard trap: the "Show technical/evidence detail" sections are native <details> disclosures — they toggle with Enter/Space and you can Tab past them, which is not a trap. Native disclosures are not expected to close on Esc; reserve any Esc-to-close check for a real modal/popover (none ship in this surface today). → ___
• Action-card / receipt / evidence controls are reachable and operable by keyboard. → ___

B. Screen-reader smoke (3.2 / 3.9) — AT used: ____________

• Document title and page structure (landmarks, headings) are announced understandably. → ___
• The standing / action-cards / receipt / evidence panes are each announced as distinct, named regions. → ___
• The permanent honesty banner ("Fixture-backed demo — no live node, nothing signed.") is perceivable, not visually-only. → ___
• The language selector is announced and operable. → ___
• Fixture/demo status is not hidden from AT. → ___
• Dynamic changes (e.g. opening a disclosure, "Start local demo") are announced or at least not silently confusing. → ___
• Raw identifiers (DIDs, record_hash, class names) are not read as if they were prose/translatable. → ___

C. Low-vision / 200% zoom + contrast (3.3)

• At 200% browser zoom: no essential content clipped, controls remain usable, no loss of function. → ___
• At a narrow viewport (≈320–360px): clean reflow, no horizontal scroll for primary content. → ___
• Focus outline remains visible at zoom. → ___
• External contrast tool confirms the rendered text meets the documented shell.css ratios below. (The ratios are arithmetically ≥ AA — see §6C — but a tool must confirm the rendered surface uses these tokens at these sizes.) → ___

D. Switch / non-pointer access (3.5 / 3.9) — input used: ____________

• With switch-control software (or another non-keyboard, non-mouse input), all interactive controls are reachable and operable. → ___
• No hover-only controls; touch hit targets are ≥ ~44×44 CSS px where touch is expected. → ___

E. Language-selector usability (i18n seam) — honesty-bounded

(The seam is infrastructure, not translation. en is the only real catalog; qps-ploc is a pseudo-locale coverage test; ar ships an intentionally empty catalog that demonstrates RTL while falling back to English — its document lang stays en so AT is not told the English fallback is Arabic.)

• The language selector is discoverable and operable (mouse, keyboard, and AT). → ___
• ?lang=qps-ploc: member-facing strings are visibly pseudo-localized (⟦…⟧, accented). Any plain-English string left under the pseudo-locale is a missed extraction — note it. → ___
• ?lang=ar: layout mirrors to RTL (dir=rtl) without breaking the demo surface; text remains English fallback (expected — ar is a layout demo, not a translation); lang stays en. → ___
• Switching locales does not strand focus or hide the honesty banner. → ___

F. Reduced motion (supportive)

• With prefers-reduced-motion set, the surface remains usable and content stays visible. → ___

5. Evidence-recording rules (repo-safe)

• Capture screenshots / a short screen-reader transcript per category. Keep binaries in your local artifact store, not committed (mirror the walkthrough doc's artifact convention); reference them by path/hash in this doc.
• Never capture or paste a JWT, token, key, passphrase, private IP/hostname, or any credential. Fixture mode has no credential in the URL; live mode does — do not use live mode for evidence here.
• Record the exact AT name+version and input method per category (3.9 requires naming the AT).

6. Automated evidence reproduced for this packet (at 2b148e72)

• 6A axe / keyboard / structure: see §1 table — reproduced via the walkthrough doc's exact command (after ( cd web/pilot-ui && npm ci && npx playwright install chromium ) per its Method section): NODE_PATH=web/pilot-ui/node_modules node web/member-shell/a11y-walkthrough.cjs http://127.0.0.1:8099 ./out. axe 0 violations / 27 passes; 16 focusable reached, all outlined; landmarks + skip link + single h1.
• 6C contrast math: independent WCAG relative-luminance recomputation of the seven shell.css tokens yields all ratios ≥ AA (range 7.0–17.0:1). Recomputed values are ≥ the documented values (the shell.css comments are conservative; deltas ≤ ~1.1, all still ≥ 4.5:1) — a minor doc-accuracy nit, not a contrast failure. This verifies the token math only; it does not verify the rendered surface or human perception — 3.3 still owes a human + external-tool pass.
• 6E i18n smoke: loading web/member-shell/i18n.js for ?lang=en|qps-ploc|ar resolves the locale, applies lang/dir (ar→dir=rtl, lang=en fallback override; qps-ploc→lang=en-x-ploc), and returns English for en, pseudo-text for qps-ploc, English fallback for ar. PASS.

7. After the human pass is complete

1. Fill in §2 and every checklist item in §4 with a verdict + observation + evidence reference.
2. In `JULY_DEMO_CANDIDATE_0.1_ACCESSIBILITY_WALKTHROUGH.md` §5, flip gate rows 3.2 / 3.3 / 3.5 / 3.9 from "Pass with documented follow-ups #2041" to Pass (or Blocked, with the real reason), and update §9 "owed" and the surface-readiness conclusion to match what was actually observed.
3. Update #2041 with the result and close it only if the gate categories genuinely pass.

8. What must NOT be claimed until this packet is actually completed by a human

• Automated axe/browser evidence exists; human AT validation is separate and, as of this commit, still owed.
• Language-modularity infrastructure exists; real translations are not complete; the pseudo-locale is not a translation; the ar RTL path is a layout demo with English fallback, not Arabic-language completion.
• This is still local / dev / demo / single-actor. Not production. Not pilot-ready. Not organizer-ready until the gate categories pass. Not live federation. Not NYCN-approved/adopted. Not partner-ready. Not private-data ready. Not a two-member flow. Not production signed receipts.