Accessibility

This page describes what Pulse Of Your City does to be usable by readers with a range of abilities and devices, where it falls short today, and how to tell me when something is hard to use. Accessibility is treated as a continuing project on the site, not a one-time checklist.

Standards I aim for

The target is conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA. That covers contrast, keyboard navigation, predictable focus order, descriptive link text, page structure with proper heading levels, and meaningful alternative text on images that carry information.

Things the site already does

• Semantic HTML. Every page uses proper <nav>, <main>, <section> and heading hierarchy so screen readers can build a real outline of the page rather than guessing from styling alone.
• Keyboard navigation. All interactive controls (the city picker, the mobile menu toggle, every link and button) are reachable with the Tab key, with a visible focus indicator. The site does not trap focus in any modal or widget.
• Live regions. Areas of the page that update asynchronously — loading indicators, score cards, news cards — are wrapped in aria-live regions so screen readers announce changes rather than silently swapping content.
• Responsive layout. The site is designed mobile-first; layouts scale from approximately 320px wide up to large desktop monitors without horizontal scrolling.
• Reduced motion. Where animations exist (the loading pulse, the country bar), they respect the visitor's prefers-reduced-motion setting and stop animating for visitors who've opted out at the system level.
• Colour contrast. Body text uses dark grey on near-white, and the brand red used for emphasis is checked against the WCAG AA contrast ratio (4.5:1) for normal-size text.

Known gaps

The site has known accessibility gaps that I'm working on. The most significant is that some live-data widgets (the sports scoreboard and the deal grids) inherit DOM structure from upstream API responses, and the structure is not always ideal for screen-reader navigation; I'm rewriting the rendering layer for those over the next few months. Decorative emoji used as section icons currently have no aria-hidden attribute on every page — that's being added in a coming pass. If you find something else that's hard to use, please flag it.

How to report a problem

If you hit an accessibility issue — a control you can't reach with the keyboard, a contrast ratio that's too low, a label that's missing — email feedback@exploreallplaces.com (see the contact page for context) with the URL and a description of what went wrong. Accessibility reports jump the queue; they're the most useful feedback the site can receive on this front.

Assistive-technology compatibility

I test the site on the major modern combinations: NVDA + Firefox on Windows, VoiceOver + Safari on macOS and iOS, and TalkBack + Chrome on Android. I do not have routine access to JAWS or Dragon NaturallySpeaking — if you use either and encounter trouble, please get in touch; I'll work with you to fix what I can and document what I can't.

Statement last reviewed: May 21, 2026.