Accessibility Statement
A local platform that some locals can't use isn't local enough. This page explains what we've built into citykits.com for accessibility, how to use it and how to tell us when something falls short.
Our Commitment
We aim for citykits.com to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA, and we treat the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a floor rather than a finish line. Accessibility on this site isn't a bolted-on widget doing damage control; the pages themselves are built to be usable first, and the toolbar adds personal adjustments on top. We review the site against these standards as we change it, because the honest failure mode of accessibility work is drift.
What's Built Into Every Page
- Semantic HTML landmarks: one H1 per page, ordered headings, real lists, real buttons and labeled navigation regions.
- A "Skip to main content" link that appears on keyboard focus, so keyboard users aren't forced through the menu on every page.
- Full keyboard operability: menus, accordions, tabs and the accessibility panel all open, close and traverse with the keyboard, and Escape closes overlays.
- Visible focus indicators with a bold outline that doesn't vanish into the background.
- Color contrast in text and interactive elements chosen to meet AA ratios, with color never used as the only carrier of meaning.
- Descriptive alternative text on informative images, and empty or hidden markings on purely decorative graphics.
- Respect for your operating system's reduced motion setting: when it's on, our animations stand down automatically.
- Touch targets sized for thumbs on the mobile layout, including the floating action bar.
The Accessibility Toolbar
Every page carries a round button with an accessibility figure, fixed near the lower left corner of your screen. It opens a panel of adjustments that apply immediately, follow you across the whole site and persist on your device between visits. Nothing about your choices is transmitted to us.
What Each Control Does
- Text size (A / A+ / A++): scales the entire site's type up to 125 percent without breaking layouts.
- Dyslexia friendly font: swaps the site's typefaces for Lexend, a typeface designed for reading ease.
- Highlight links: underlines every link and gives it a high-visibility background so links stop hiding in sentences.
- Reading guide: adds a horizontal guide bar that follows your pointer, useful for holding your place in longer passages.
- High contrast: shifts the palette to darker text on plain backgrounds and strengthens borders.
- Reduce motion: stops scroll animations, hover movement and the scrolling ticker, on top of whatever your operating system already requests.
- Reset all settings: returns every option to its default in one press.
How to Get Around Without a Mouse
Tab moves forward through interactive elements and Shift+Tab moves backward. Enter or Space activates buttons, including the menu headings that open the large dropdown panels. Escape closes any open menu, the translate panel and the accessibility panel. The skip link is the first thing focus lands on from the top of each page.
Known Limitations
Honesty beats a perfect scorecard, so here's where the edges are.
- The optional translation feature is Google's widget. Once opened, its internal controls are Google's interface, and we can't restyle every part of it.
- Photographs served from Unsplash are decorative or illustrative; we describe them in alt text, but we don't control the source files.
- The contact form hands off to your device's email application, and the accessibility of that application is outside our reach.
- Portals in the CityKits network are separate sites with their own accessibility work; this statement speaks only for citykits.com.
How We Check Our Work
During development we test keyboard paths by hand, check contrast values against WCAG ratios, verify heading order and landmarks, and run pages through automated accessibility checks. Automated tools catch the mechanical failures; the manual passes catch the human ones. When we ship changes to this site, accessibility review is part of the change, not a follow-up ticket.
Tell Us Where It Breaks
If any part of this site is hard to use with your eyes, ears, hands or assistive technology, we want the details: the page, what you were trying to do and what got in the way. Write to [email protected] with "Accessibility" in the subject line. Reports like these jump the queue, and you'll hear back from a person, not a template.