Our commitment
We want every part of this guide usable by everybody who wants to use it, including people who browse with a screen reader, a keyboard only, a switch device, a magnifier, or with motion sensitivity. We treat accessibility as part of building the page rather than something bolted on afterward.
We target conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA, and we design with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 in mind.
What is built into every page
- A visible skip link to the main content as the first focusable element.
- One H1 per page and a heading order that never skips a level, so screen reader users can navigate by structure.
- Semantic landmarks: header, nav, main, and footer, each labelled where more than one exists.
- Keyboard operation for every interactive control, including the mega menu, which opens on Enter or Arrow Down and closes on Escape.
- Focus is trapped inside open dialogs and returned to the triggering control when they close.
- A visible focus ring on every focusable element, with a thicker option in the accessibility panel.
- Text alternatives on every meaningful image. Decorative artwork is marked aria-hidden so it is skipped rather than announced.
- Width and height on every image so the layout does not shift while the page loads.
- Form fields with real labels, and error and help text tied to their field with aria-describedby.
- The search field is a proper combobox with aria-expanded, aria-controls and aria-activedescendant.
- Colour is never the only way information is conveyed. Tide direction carries an icon and a word, not just a hue.
- Full support for prefers-reduced-motion, which stops every reveal, parallax and animation.
- The page reflows to 320 pixels wide without horizontal scrolling, and survives 200% browser zoom.
The accessibility panel
Every page carries an accessibility control in the header, marked with the standard accessibility icon. It is a real dialog with real form controls, not an overlay that guesses what you need. Your choices are saved in your browser and applied before the next page paints, so nothing flashes at you. The panel offers:
- Text scaling from 90% to 180% in steps, applied without breaking the layout.
- High contrast mode, which raises text and interface contrast site wide.
- Dark mode, which also follows your operating system preference by default.
- A dyslexia friendly typeface with heavier, more open letterforms.
- Increased letter, word and line spacing.
- Reduce motion, which stops all non essential animation.
- Permanent link underlines.
- A thicker keyboard focus ring.
- Hide decorative artwork, which removes background imagery and illustration.
- A reading guide rule that follows your cursor.
- An enlarged pointer.
- A single control that resets everything.
We want to be straight about the limits of a widget like this. A settings panel helps, but it is not a substitute for the page being built correctly underneath. The list in the previous section is the part that actually matters, and it is where most of the work goes.
Known gaps
We would rather publish this list than pretend it is empty.
- Business listing content, including names, hours and photographs, is supplied by Google Places. We cannot rewrite the alt text on a photograph a business owner uploaded to Google, so those images carry a generated description built from the business name, category and city rather than a description of the image itself.
- Photography on the site is currently licensed placeholder imagery while the destination photography is produced. Alt text describes what each placeholder shows and does not claim it was taken at the location named beside it.
- Translated pages are rendered by Google Translate. We control the trigger and the styling, not the quality of the translation or the accessibility of Google's injected markup.
- Third party embeds such as maps are governed by their vendors. Where an embed cannot meet our standard we provide the same information in text or link out to an accessible alternative.
- The site has not yet been through a formal third party audit. We test with keyboard only navigation, VoiceOver, and automated tooling, and we intend to commission an independent audit.
Tell us when something does not work
If any part of this site blocks you, we want to hear about it, and we would rather hear about it early. Email [email protected]. It helps if you can tell us the page address, what you were trying to do, and what assistive technology and browser you were using, but send it even if you cannot.
We aim to acknowledge accessibility reports within five business days and to describe our plan for a fix in that reply. If a fix will take a while, we will offer another way to get you the information you were after in the meantime.
Questions about this document? [email protected]