Snapplify's Accessibility Commitment
Updated: 11 February 2025
1. Company & Product Overview
Snapplify is at the forefront of edtech solutions in Africa, specializing in enabling digital learning for individuals and institutions via the largest digital educational marketplace in Africa. Thousands of schools, colleges, and universities use Snapplify daily to teach, learn, and access educational content. Snapplify is the digital content partner on one of the widest-reaching digital interventions in Africa—a project that delivers technology and e-learning to public schools in South Africa's Gauteng province.
As a socially minded company, Snapplify is committed to supporting others and creating sustainable change globally through collaboration and innovation. Snapplify runs impact programs through the Snapplify Foundation and empowers, inspires, and uplifts teachers via Teacha! (the largest community of teachers in Africa). Snapplify’s technology is also integrated into other educational products to facilitate collaboration throughout the educational community.
Products Overview
- Snapplify Engage:
An all-in-one e-learning platform providing access to a vast digital library, collaboration tools, and resources for educators and students. It supports both online and offline reading through the Snapplify Reader app, which is optimized with academic features like note-taking, highlighting, and bookmarking. - Snapplify Reader:
A cross-platform application that allows users to read digital books and educational materials. It includes features such as synchronized notes, highlights, and bookmarks across devices, facilitating seamless learning experiences. The interface is designed to support accessibility standards, ensuring usability for all readers. - Snapplify Shop:
An online store offering a wide selection of educational and recreational reading materials, including eBooks, hardcopy books, audiobooks, and teaching resources. Users can browse curated collections and utilize advanced search filters to find specific titles. - Teacha! Resources:
A marketplace where educators can access and share teaching resources, lesson plans, and other educational materials to support effective teaching practices. - Snapplify Cloud Services:
A suite of tools designed for educational institutions and publishers, including: - Snapplify Access:
Simplifies user authentication, allowing users to access various products with their existing Snapplify accounts. - Snapplify Pay:
Enables institutions to accept payments across multiple regions in local currencies. - Snapplify Origin:
Facilitates the distribution and management of digital content, enabling the creation of custom content marketplaces.
All Snapplify products are developed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that interfaces are navigable and usable by individuals with diverse needs.
2. Accessibility Commitment
At Snapplify, we believe that knowledge should be accessible to everyone. As a leading provider of eBook solutions, we are committed to ensuring our platform and content meet the highest accessibility standards, empowering all users—including those with disabilities—to engage with digital books seamlessly.
Beyond compliance, we prioritize inclusive design, conducting rigorous accessibility testing with experts and real users to refine our platform continuously. We provide ongoing employee training and encourage customer feedback to enhance our accessibility efforts.
Accessibility isn’t just a feature—it’s a core value at Snapplify. We remain dedicated to breaking digital barriers and making eBooks truly available to all.
3. Standards & Compliance
Snapplify is progressively aligning with WCAG 2.2 standards. Key focus areas include:
- Keyboard navigation improvements
- Enhanced contrast ratios
- Alternative text for images
- Screen reader support
Our technical team accounts for the complexity of our diverse product offerings. We continuously update our accessibility roadmap based on industry standards and user feedback.
4. Accessibility Features
The Snapplify Reader app includes a range of accessibility features designed to enhance the reading experience:
Reading Options:
The Snapplify Reader supports a wide range of file types, ensuring seamless access to educational content—anytime, anywhere. PDFs and ePUBs – the most common formats used for ebooks – will open in the reader itself, as will MP4s, MP3s, TXT files, JPGs, PNGs, and Snap files. Certain third-party file formats (e.g. Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint, Google Docs/Sheets, etc.), however, will open in their native applications.
- Portable Document Format (PDF)
The PDF is widely used for digital documents. A PDF presents a fixed layout – like having the the printed page in front of you, except it’s on a screen. A PDF is usually easy to read on desktop computers and laptops, but can be cumbersome on devices with small screens: the text size cannot be adjusted so you may need to zoom in and/or scroll horizontally. - E-publication (ePUB)
The ePUB has become the technical standard for the book publishing industry. It works particularly well for ebooks because the design is reflowable and optimised for whatever device you’re using. The text is automatically resized to fit the screen and can ‘flow’ around images. This interactive format gives you a tailored reading experience and allows for much more flexibility.
Digital Rights Management:
Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a system of protecting digital content, so that it cannot be copied, stolen, printed, or used in a way that the publisher or owner of the content objects to.
Snapplify ensures strict encryption and protection of publisher-owned content using SnappSafe DRM, our international-standard, tried-and-tested DRM software which caters for Territory restrictions, license limit periods as well as device limits.
Copying and Printing:
Copy/paste functions within ebooks are disabled due to copyright requirements. While you cannot copy/paste sections out of the book, you can easily make notes and highlights, and bookmark important sections that you want to come back to later.
While most publishers prohibit the printing of ebooks as a way to protect against piracy, some publishers have enabled this option for readers on specific content. If a book has been set as printable by the publisher, then you will be able to print it from the Snapplify Reader app.
OpenDyslexic font:
A specialized font designed to reduce reading errors associated with dyslexia.
Text-to-speech functionality:
Supports users with reading disabilities by converting text into spoken words, which is a default function in the Snapplify Reader.
Magnification & Reflow:
Zooming enables you to adjust the size of text and images. You might want to zoom in or out of your ebook to improve readability on a section of text or to make an image clearer. You can easily do so on ePUB and PDF-format ebooks in the reader app, using the zoom functionality.
Reflowable ePUB content also has the ability to be read in vertical or horizontal mode, based off of a users preference.
High-contrast dark/light mode:
This guide is for all Snapplify Reader users who want to customize their reading experience by selecting between dark and light reading modes.
Dark mode and light mode are display options available on ePUBs that allow you to customize the color scheme of your Snapplify Reader. Dark mode features a dark background with light text and is easier on the eyes, while light mode has a light background with dark text, resembling a traditional book.
- Benefits of Dark Mode:
Dark mode reduces eye strain and fatigue, particularly when reading in low-light environments. The dark background and reduced brightness of the screen can be gentler on the eyes, preventing discomfort. Dark mode improves readability with high contrast, enhancing focus and making content easier to comprehend. Dark mode is also known to save battery life on devices with OLED or AMOLED screens since these displays don't require energy to illuminate the black pixels. - Benefits of Light Mode:
Some users find light mode more comfortable to read in well-lit environments, as the light background can provide better contrast with the surroundings. Individuals with certain visual impairments, such as photophobia, may find light mode more suitable for their needs.
Keyboard navigation:
Ensures the application is usable without requiring a mouse. Use the left and right keys to page through your content, and if you have a mouse attached to your device, you can use the mouse wheel to scroll through your content.
Online and offline access:
Allows users to access their learning materials even without an internet connection.
Annotations:
Users can take notes, highlight text, and bookmark pages.
Sync annotations:
Synchronizes notes, highlights, and bookmarks across multiple devices.
Remember Page:
Automatically returns users to their last-read page upon reopening a book.
Additional efforts are underway to expand accesibility features, ensuring inclusivity across all Snapplify Products.
5. Known Limitations & Roadmap
Screen Reader Support:
Our team is actively developing full support for mainstream screen readers, including NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver.
Closed Captions & Transcripts:
We are working to ensure all multimedia content is accompanied by captions or transcripts where applicable.
User Feedback Integration:
We continuously gather insights from users with disabilities to refine and improve accessibility across our platform.
6. Feedback & Contact Information
Users experiencing accessibility issues or requiring accommodations while using Snapplify's products can report concerns or request assistance through the following channels:
How to Report an Accessibility Issue or Request Accommodations
Contact Snapplify Support:
Users can email [email protected] for accessibility-related inquiries, directing requests to Roberto Dionisio (Product Manager).
Email responses generally occur within 1-2 business day/s of receipt.
Users can also contact our team telephonically: +27(0)21 276 4433
Live Chat Support:
Our team offers 24-hour live chat support.
Snapplify Help Centre:
Users can browse support articles or submit a support request via the Snapplify Help Centre.
Institutional Support & Integration Queries:
Schools and universities can request custom accessibility solutions by contacting their Snapplify account manager or filling out the contact form on Snapplify’s website.
Snapplify continually improves its e-learning platform, digital reading tools, and content accessibility based on user feedback. If you experience any accessibility challenges, reporting them will help the team prioritize enhancements for a more inclusive user experience.
