Accessibility

We want cartahaven.com and the Cartahaven map app to work for everyone, including people who use a keyboard, a screen reader, zoom or high-contrast settings. We work toward the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. We have not had an independent audit, so we don't claim full conformance; this page says what we do and what we know still falls short.

What we do

Keyboard

• Every page starts with a “Skip to content” link, and every link, button and form field can be reached with Tab and shows a clear focus outline.
• Menus, dialogs and the zoomable map preview open and close from the keyboard; Escape closes the preview and focus goes back to where you were.
• In the map app, a map that has keyboard focus pans with the arrow keys and zooms with + and −, and the import, layer and tool buttons are real buttons.

Screen readers

• Pages use headings, landmarks, labelled form fields and tables with header cells, so they can be navigated by structure.
• Screenshots and map thumbnails have text descriptions; decorative icons are hidden from screen readers.
• Messages that appear after an action (saved, sync status, errors) are announced as status messages.
• Voice cues in the map app (Settings, Display, “Voice cues”) read the off-route, turnaround, boundary and area alerts and bearing turns out loud.
• “Where am I, in words” in the map app describes your position from the names printed on the map, with latitude and longitude, UTM and MGRS as text you can read or copy, so your position is not only a dot on a picture.

Contrast and text size

• Our text colors are chosen for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against the backgrounds they are used on (WCAG AA for normal text), and our automated tests check the main pairs.
• Pages can be zoomed to 200% and beyond: we never block pinch-zoom, and wide tables turn into stacked cards on a phone instead of scrolling sideways.
• The map app follows your device's dark mode, and has a red-light night mode for use outdoors at night.

Motion

• The website has no autoplaying video, carousels or moving backgrounds. A trip page replay starts only when you press play, and with reduced motion it moves in steps instead of gliding.
• The map app turns off its animations when your device is set to reduce motion.

Known gaps

These are the problems we know about. We are working on them, and would rather tell you than have you find out on a trail.

• The maps themselves are pictures. A GeoPDF map is an image of a printed map; a screen reader can't read the trails, contours or labels on it. “Where am I, in words”, the place search and the named-places lists cover part of this, not all of it.
• Drawing needs a pointer. Drawing routes, measuring, placing a scanned map by tapping matching points and dragging pins need a mouse, a touch screen or a stylus. Some have a typed alternative: “Mark my location” adds a placemark at your GPS position, “Go to coordinates” takes typed coordinates, and when placing a scanned map, the real-world spot for each point can be typed as coordinates instead of tapped.
• Some app screens are dense. The map app packs many tools onto a small screen; some controls are small, and a few labels are icons with a text name for screen readers but none on screen.
• The phone apps are not out yet. The Android and iPhone apps will be tested with TalkBack and VoiceOver before release; today the map app runs in your browser.
• Content from others. Maps, legends and descriptions come from publishers, and checkout pages come from Stripe. We can't make a publisher's PDF accessible, but we ask publishers to write a real description for each map.

Tell us about a problem

If something on Cartahaven is hard or impossible to use with the way you browse, email support@cartahaven.com with the page or screen, what you were trying to do, and the browser or assistive technology you use if you like. We read every message and reply, and if we can't fix it quickly we'll help you get what you need another way. You can also read our help pages.