Our Commitment
OutsideAtlas is built to be usable by everyone, including people who rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, high-contrast themes, or reduced-motion settings. We follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at the AA level as our target.
Features We’ve Built In
- Keyboard navigation — all interactive elements (search, filter chips, card actions, dropdowns) work with Tab / Enter / Esc.
- Skip-to-content link — appears on focus, jumps past the nav.
- Focus rings — visible orange-green outline on focused elements (keyboard users only, not mouse).
- Reduced motion — we honor
prefers-reduced-motion and disable non-essential animations. - Color-blind safe — difficulty colors are paired with text labels (Easy / Moderate / Hard / Expert), not color alone.
- Semantic HTML — proper headings, landmarks, lists, and ARIA labels throughout.
- Alt text — descriptive alt on photos and decorative SVGs marked
aria-hidden. - Scalable typography — page works correctly at 200% browser zoom.
- Map fallbacks — every embedded Leaflet map server-renders coordinates + an OSM link for users who can’t see the map.
Known Limitations
- Leaflet maps — interactive map controls use Leaflet’s built-in keyboard support, which works but isn’t as polished as the rest of the site. Use the text fallback for full coordinate info.
- Long lists — pages with thousands of items rely on pagination + search; screen-reader users may find the “skip to next page” pattern repetitive on huge state pages.
- Color contrast — most text meets AAA contrast; a small number of meta lines (timestamps, attribution) sit at AA. We continue to audit.
Tested With
- VoiceOver (macOS, iOS)
- NVDA (Windows)
- Chrome DevTools Lighthouse + axe DevTools
- Keyboard-only navigation across all primary flows
Report an Issue
Hit an accessibility barrier? Tell us — we treat these as high-priority bugs. Email hello@outsideatlas.com with:
- The page URL where you hit the issue
- Your assistive tech (screen reader, browser, OS)
- What you were trying to do
- What went wrong
We aim to acknowledge accessibility reports within 3 business days and fix critical issues within 30 days when feasible.
Standards & Resources