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ZavisUAE Healthcare Directory

Zavis Trust & Standards

Accessibility Statement

Zavis is committed to making the UAE's open healthcare directory and the Zavis intelligence archive usable by everyone — including people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, magnification, voice control, or any other assistive technology. This page explains what we do, what we still need to fix, and how to tell us when something isn't working for you.

Last updated: 2026-04-11

Our commitment

Zavis aims to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA across every route we own. We target AA, not AAA — AAA imposes costs (such as mandatory sign-language video for every media asset) that are incompatible with a free public directory of 12,500+ providers, and the W3C itself does not recommend AAA as a general target for entire websites. AA is the level referenced by most global regulators, including the guidance issued by the UAE's Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA).

Scope

This statement covers all pages under zavis.ai that Zavis directly controls, including the healthcare directory (/directory/*, /find-a-doctor/*, /insurance/*), the Zavis Intelligence archive (/intelligence/*), the search experience (/search), the bilingual Arabic mirror (/ar/*), and the GCC country directories (/sa, /qa, /bh, /kw). It also covers the marketing pages under the root route group (/, /about, /pricing, /book-a-demo).

Third-party embeds — Google Maps, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity, LinkedIn Insight, Meta Pixel, and any social media embeds inside intelligence articles — are out of scope. See “Third-party content” below.

Known limitations

We publish our known gaps here, rather than quietly hoping you don't notice them, because honesty about the current state is more useful than a vague claim of full compliance. Current known issues:

  • Legacy <img> tags on marketing pages. A handful of decorative images on the landing pages still use native <img> instead of Next.js next/image. Alt text is in place, but the migration to next/image is in progress.
  • Google Maps iframe on provider profiles is supplied by a third party. It ships with its own keyboard handlers and screen reader semantics which Zavis does not control. A text-based address, phone, and directions link always sits next to the map as an equivalent alternative.
  • Animated sections on the marketing pages use GSAP for entrance animations. These animations respect the prefers-reduced-motion media query and are purely decorative; no information is conveyed by animation alone.
  • Some legacy directory routes with client-side pagination. The main directory routes were migrated to server-side pagination in April 2026 (Zocdoc roadmap Item 0.5), but a small number of legacy “top rated” routes still hydrate their list client-side. Keyboard users can still page through them, and the migration is tracked as a known item.
  • PDF research reports published under /intelligence/reports are not always tagged PDFs. An HTML summary accompanies every report as an accessible equivalent.

How to report an issue

If you hit an accessibility barrier — anything from a missing label on a form field, to a color contrast problem, to a screen reader reading something nonsensical — please email [email protected]. Please include the URL, the browser and assistive technology you were using (for example “Safari 17 with VoiceOver on macOS”), and a short description of what went wrong. We aim to acknowledge every report within 3 business days and to propose a remediation plan within 10 business days. Critical blockers — pages that cannot be used at all by a given assistive technology — are triaged within one business day.

Compliance status

Zavis is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. “Partially conformant” means the majority of the site conforms to AA, but some parts of the content — principally the third-party embeds and the legacy items listed above — do not yet fully conform. We do not claim Level AAA conformance, and we do not claim Level A because A is a strict subset of AA.

UAE Federal Law reference

The United Arab Emirates recognises digital accessibility as a civil right. Zavis aligns with UAE Federal Law No. (29) of 2006 concerning the Rights of People with Special Needs (as amended by Federal Law No. (14) of 2009 and Federal Decree Law of 2020 renaming the protected class “People of Determination”), which guarantees access to public information and services on an equal basis. We also reference the digital accessibility guidance issued by the UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), which in practice asks public-facing digital services to conform to WCAG 2.1 AA and to publish an accessibility statement. This page is that statement.

Third-party content disclaimer

Zavis embeds third-party content in two places: Google Maps on provider profiles and the occasional social media embed (X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube) inside intelligence articles. Zavis does not control the accessibility of those third parties. We always provide a text alternative — the full address and phone number next to the map, and a transcript or summary next to the social embed — so that every primary piece of information on a Zavis page can be reached without ever interacting with the third-party widget.

Testing methodology

Zavis pages are audited against WCAG 2.1 AA using a combination of automated tooling (axe-core and Lighthouse accessibility audits) and manual checks: keyboard-only navigation through every interactive component, screen reader smoke tests with VoiceOver on macOS and NVDA on Windows, and contrast verification against our brand tokens. We do not rely on automated tools alone — automation catches roughly 30–40% of real accessibility defects, and the remaining issues require a human in the loop.

Technologies that must be enabled

Zavis is built as a modern web application and relies on the following to be fully functional: HTML5, CSS3, WAI-ARIA, SVG, and JavaScript. JavaScript must be enabled for search, pagination, and the interactive filters on directory pages. Cookies are used for consent, analytics, and — once the Zavis member account system launches — session management.

Feedback beyond accessibility

If your issue is not strictly about accessibility but still about how Zavis presents provider information — for example a factual error on a clinic's listing, a missing translation, or a data source question — you can also reach us at [email protected]. For general trust and editorial questions, see our editorial policy.