Accessibility
We’ve been doing a fair bit of work the last few weeks on implementing a number of accessible features in the applications we are jointly building with Reading Room for the new CCW website (coming soon). We’ve been lucky enough to work with the RNIB who have provided invaluable feedback.
We have focused on the technical requirements so far which include making all controls accessible via the keyboard including map navigation, searching and selection of layers; providing screen reader prompts to describe the various controls, lists of results etc. and allowing the application to scale with respect to the users desired text size. A number of these features will make their way into the core ActionScript API before v2.6.
We’ve also been working with various staff at CCW to compile the layers displayed in the applications and a number of things have been done to try and ensure the content (generally the map data CCW maintain such as SSSIs.) is easy to distingush against the backdrop maps.
The next area of focus is providing alternative accessible content for those users that find it difficult to interact with a map, which will need to involve the data owners at CCW who are best placed to say what information needs to be made accessible.
