Accessibility statement
Eindhoven Mapped is a public website where residents and visitors share what they have experienced in the city. We want everyone to be able to read those stories and add their own, whatever technology they browse the web with.
This statement sets out how accessible the site is today, which parts fall short and why, and how to reach us if something stands in your way.
1. Our commitment
We are committed to making Eindhoven Mapped usable by everyone, including people who browse with a screen reader, screen magnification, speech input, a keyboard alone, or any other assistive technology.
This statement applies to the public website at eindhovenmapped.com: the home page, the map, the story pages, the about page, the terms and conditions and the form for sharing an experience. It does not cover the password-protected administration area, which is an internal editorial tool and is not part of the service offered to the public.
2. Conformance status
Eindhoven Mapped is partially conformant with EN 301 549 and with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2, Level AA. Partially conformant means that most of the site meets those requirements, but some parts of it do not.
We deliberately do not claim full conformance. The shortcomings we know about are listed below, with the reason for each and the date by which we expect to have resolved them. If you find one that is not on the list, please tell us; we would rather hear about it than leave it undocumented.
3. Content that is not accessible
The interactive map
The map is drawn by Mapbox GL, a third-party mapping component that renders streets, labels and shapes into a single graphic. That drawing cannot be exposed to a screen reader in any meaningful way, and because the component is supplied by a third party we cannot change how it renders.
Reason: third-party content, combined with a technical limitation of map rendering. As an alternative, every story that appears on the map is also listed as text next to it, and that list can be read and operated without using the map at all.
Photos submitted by visitors
The photos on this site are supplied by members of the public along with their stories. A photo may therefore have no text alternative, or one that does not describe what is actually in the picture, because we do not take the photographs ourselves.
Reason: user-generated content. Where a photo appears next to the story title that already describes it, we mark the photo as decorative so a screen reader does not read the same text twice. We add or improve descriptions during moderation where we can. If a specific photo matters to you, ask us and we will describe it.
Automatically translated stories
Stories are submitted in Dutch or English and translated automatically into the other language. A machine translation can read awkwardly, and a passage of it may not always be marked up with the language a screen reader should pronounce it in.
Reason: automated translation of user-generated content. Every translated story is labelled as translated and the original text can be shown with a single control.
Choosing a location when sharing an experience
The submission form asks you to pin your story to a place on a map. Parts of that picker are still difficult to operate without a mouse.
Reason: non-conformance we are actively fixing. In the meantime you can search for an address by typing it, and if the picker blocks you entirely you can send us your story using the contact details below and we will place it for you.
We expect to have resolved the shortcomings above by . Where a limitation is caused by third-party software, we will replace or supplement that component rather than leave the barrier standing.
4. Accessibility features
The following features are supported across the public site:
- the site is delivered as ordinary HTML with headings, landmarks and lists, so it can be navigated structurally by a screen reader;
- everything that can be operated with a mouse can also be operated with a keyboard, and the element with keyboard focus is visibly marked;
- text can be enlarged to at least 200% and the page reflows to narrow screens without side-to-side scrolling;
- the whole interface is available in both Dutch and English, and the language of the page is declared so a screen reader pronounces it correctly;
- the stories plotted on the map are also available as a text list, so the map is never the only way to reach content;
- there is no audio or video that starts by itself, no content that flashes, and no time limit on filling in a form.
5. Technical specifications
Accessibility of Eindhoven Mapped relies on the following technologies working in combination with your browser and any assistive technology you use: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and WAI-ARIA.
The site is built to work with current versions of the major browsers on desktop and mobile, together with the screen readers commonly used with them. If you use an older browser or an assistive technology we have not anticipated, tell us what happens and we will look into it.
6. How we prepared this statement
This statement was prepared on .
The assessment was a self-assessment: our own development team reviewed the site's code, markup and interaction patterns against WCAG 2.2 Level AA and the web requirements of EN 301 549. It was not audited by an independent third party, and we do not present it as though it had been.
The statement was last reviewed on . We review it at least once a year, and again whenever we make a significant change to the site.
7. Feedback and how to reach us
If something on this site stops you from doing what you came to do, please tell us. The same channel is also the one to use if you would like a story, the terms and conditions or anything else on this site in another format, such as plain text, large print or read aloud.
A contact address has not yet been published for this environment. If you are reading this on the live site, it is a fault on our side and we would like to know about it.
It helps us if you mention the address of the page, what you were trying to do, what happened instead, and which browser or assistive technology you were using. None of that is required, though: a sentence saying something does not work is enough to start with.
We aim to answer accessibility feedback within 5 working days. If a fix will take longer than that, we will tell you what we are doing and when we expect it to be done.
8. If you are not satisfied with our response
If we do not reply within 5 working days, or our answer does not resolve the problem, you can escalate the matter. Eindhoven Mapped is operated from the Netherlands, and accessibility of services there is supervised by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) under the European Accessibility Act.
You can report the matter to the ACM at www.acm.nl.
If you consider that you have been treated unequally because of a disability or chronic illness, you can also ask the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights for a ruling.
The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights can be reached at www.mensenrechten.nl.