Accessibility
Outpost should work for everyone who wants to look up a place in California, including people who use a keyboard, a screen reader or zoom. Here is where it stands.
Our aim
We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. Outpost hasn’t had a formal audit, so we don’t claim full conformance.
What works today
- The guides, data sources, FAQ and other text pages are plain HTML with headings in order, a “Skip to content” link and a visible outline on the focused link. They work without JavaScript and can be zoomed.
- On the map you can find a place without a mouse: type an address, place name or coordinates in the search box, move through the suggestions with the arrow keys and press Enter. The scorecard then opens for that place.
- The scorecard gives each result in words, such as a zone’s name or class, not only as a color, and most guides include a key to the map colors.
- The layer switches and icon-only buttons have names for screen readers, the switches say whether they are on, and the Sources & disclaimers panel closes with Escape.
Known limits
- The map itself is visual. A screen reader can’t describe the satellite imagery or the colored hazard layers, and picking a point by clicking needs a mouse or touch. Searching for the place opens the same scorecard.
- Some small labels use muted text that may be harder to read than we’d like.
- The map needs a recent browser with WebGL 2 graphics. The text pages don’t.
Tell us about a barrier
If something on Outpost is hard to use, or you need its information in another form, tell us through Valencia Labs’ inquiry form. Say which page, what you were trying to do, and the browser or assistive technology you use. We’ll try to fix it, or get you the information another way.