Accessibility Statement

Our approach

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA across every page of this guide, from the directory and events calendar to the long-form journal. In practice that means semantic HTML structure, a single h1 per page followed by sequential h2 and h3 headings, descriptive alternative text on photography, visible keyboard focus states, a skip-to-content link at the top of every page, and colour contrast that passes at normal text sizes against our charcoal, forest, and ivory palette.

Keyboard and screen reader use

Every interactive control — navigation menus, the plan-builder buttons on your saved plan, and each editorial form across the site — is reachable and operable from a keyboard alone, with a visible focus ring. Form fields carry associated labels, required fields are announced, and submission results are posted to an ARIA live region so screen reader users hear the outcome without hunting for it.

Motion

Animations respect the operating-system reduced-motion preference. If you have that setting enabled, transitions and background motion on this site are suppressed, including on richer pages like Plan your weekend.

Known limitations

The interactive neighborhood map is a schematic graphic rather than a live mapping application. Every marker on it is keyboard-focusable and labelled, and all of the information it conveys is also available in text on the relevant place pages. Where we embed a Google Map for a confirmed public address, that embed is Google's own interface and inherits Google's accessibility behaviour rather than ours; we link to a text address alongside it wherever that occurs.

Images and credits

Photography across the site carries descriptive alt text for assistive technology, independent of the credit and licensing information covered on our image license page. If an image's alternative text is missing, inaccurate, or unhelpful, treat that as an accessibility report under the process below.

Feedback and corrections

If you encounter a barrier anywhere on this site, please tell us through the private form on the contact page and describe the page, the assistive technology involved, and what you expected to happen. We treat accessibility reports the same way we treat factual corrections under our editorial standards: they are reviewed and, where confirmed, fixed promptly rather than queued indefinitely. Submissions through that form are stored privately for review as described in our privacy policy and are never published.

Ongoing work

Accessibility is not a one-time audit; it is revisited each time we add a new section, such as the collaborate or suggest a place forms, or redesign an existing one. If a new feature temporarily falls short of this statement, the feedback channel above remains the fastest way to flag it.