Accessibility Statement

1. Our commitment

Heritage Social is committed to making Experience History accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of disability, assistive technology, or how they choose to access the web. We believe that access to heritage information should be genuinely universal.

We want Experience History to be usable by people who:

• Navigate using a keyboard rather than a mouse.
• Use a screen reader or other assistive technology.
• Use voice recognition software.
• Have adjusted display settings, such as increased text size or high contrast mode.
• Access the site on a wide range of devices, browsers, and connection speeds.

Accessibility is an ongoing commitment. We review and improve the site continuously, and we welcome feedback from users about barriers they encounter.

2. Conformance status

We aim for conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA. This is the standard recommended by the UK government for public-facing websites.

We are currently working towards full conformance. Some parts of the site may not yet fully meet this standard — known issues are listed below. We are actively addressing these.

3. Technical specification

Experience History is built using:

• HTML5 with semantic markup throughout.
• CSS3 for presentation, with no reliance on colour alone to convey information.
• Vanilla JavaScript for interactive features, with progressive enhancement where possible.
• WAI-ARIA roles, states, and properties to support assistive technologies where native HTML semantics are insufficient.
• Leaflet.js for the interactive map. Note that interactive mapping presents inherent accessibility challenges — see Known Issues below.

The site is designed to be fully functional without JavaScript where practical, and all core content is available without requiring JavaScript.

4. Known issues

We are aware of the following areas where the site does not yet fully meet WCAG 2.1 AA:

• Interactive map. The Leaflet.js interactive map has limited keyboard and screen reader support. Users who cannot use a mouse may find the map difficult to navigate. We are investigating alternative approaches and will provide a text-based search alternative as a fallback. This is a known limitation of the underlying mapping library.
• Focus indicators. On some interactive elements, the visible keyboard focus indicator may not meet the enhanced contrast requirements of WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.11. We are reviewing and improving focus styles across the site.
• Third-party content. Some content embedded from or linking to third-party services (such as museum and event websites) may not meet accessibility standards. We have no control over third-party content but encourage the institutions we list to maintain accessible websites.

If you encounter an issue not listed here, please let us know using the contact details below.

5. Reporting accessibility problems

We welcome feedback on the accessibility of Experience History. If you find something that is difficult or impossible to use, or if you think we can do better, please tell us:

• Email: [email protected]

Please include as much detail as you can — the page you were on, what you were trying to do, what happened, and what assistive technology or browser you were using if relevant. We aim to respond within five working days and will do our best to resolve the issue promptly.

If you need information from the site in a different format — such as accessible PDF, large print, or easy-read — please contact us and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

6. Enforcement

If you are not satisfied with our response to an accessibility complaint, you can contact the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which enforces the Equality Act 2010 in Great Britain. In Northern Ireland, contact the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.