Trust & accuracy

We’d rather say nothing than guess.

At the worst time in a family’s life, a confident wrong answer is worse than no answer. So Afterward is engineered so it can’t give you one.

The grounding guard

The engine extracts only what is literally on your document, and every value carries a pointer to where it was read. A single enforcement layer checks each one: if a value can't be traced to the page, it is dropped and replaced with “not found — confirm with the office,” never a guess. We prove this with an automated test that tries to make the engine invent a number and confirms it cannot.

We explain, we never advise

Afterward is not a law firm, an accountant, or a financial advisor. It will not tell you what you are legally required to do, draft a court filing, or decide what you qualify for. It explains what your documents say and routes you to the probate court, the agency, or an attorney. We name the door; we never claim the key.

A sourced rules library

Deadlines and thresholds we show come from a library of 66 rules, each keyed to a jurisdiction and year and carrying its source and an “as of” date. Rules and amounts change — so every one is flagged for you to confirm with the office named on it.

This library is a starting point under review. Treat every date and amount as a prompt to verify, not as the final word — especially for state-specific rules.

Accessible and calm, on purpose

Our users are grieving, stressed, or disabled. Accessibility and calm are requirements, not polish. We hold ourselves to WCAG 2.2 AA:

1.4.3 · AA

Contrast (minimum)

Body text meets at least 4.5:1 and large text 3:1 against its background. The token palette is chosen and documented to pass.

1.4.11 · AA

Non-text contrast

Interactive controls, focus rings, and meaningful borders meet 3:1 against adjacent colors.

2.1.1 · A

Keyboard

Every interactive element is reachable and operable by keyboard alone; no keyboard traps.

2.4.1 · A

Bypass blocks

A skip link jumps past navigation to the main content.

2.4.7 · AA

Focus visible

A single, high-contrast focus ring is applied consistently via the shared FOCUS_RING utility.

2.4.11 · AA

Focus not obscured (minimum)

Sticky headers leave scroll padding so a focused element is never hidden behind them.

2.5.8 · AA

Target size (minimum)

Interactive targets are at least 24×24 CSS px; primary actions are 44px tall for comfort.

3.1.5 · AAA

Reading level

Explanations are written at roughly an 8th-grade reading level; no jargon without a plain gloss.

3.3.1 · A

Error identification

Form errors are announced in text and associated to their field via aria-describedby + aria-invalid.

3.3.2 · A

Labels or instructions

Every input has a visible, programmatically-associated label and optional help text.

4.1.2 · A

Name, role, value

Components forward native semantics (button, links, inputs) and ARIA only where native semantics fall short.

2.3.3 · AAA

Animation from interactions

All non-essential motion is disabled under prefers-reduced-motion.