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OutdoorSCOT

Accessibility statement

What we have actually checked, what we know is not good enough yet, and how to tell us when something on this site stops you doing what you came to do.

What this statement does not say

It does not claim a WCAG conformance level. No formal accessibility audit has been run against OutdoorSCOT, so any letter we put after “WCAG 2.2” would be a guess dressed as a certificate. Plenty of sites publish one anyway. We would rather tell you what has been checked and let you judge.

Everything below was verified in the code on 6 September 2026. Where we are not sure, it says so.

What is in place

  • Skip to content. Every page starts with a skip link, so a keyboard or screen-reader user does not have to walk the whole navigation on each page.
  • Alt text on every image. Checked rather than assumed — all thirteen image components on the site carry alt text, and photo credits are separate from it so a screen reader is not read a filename in place of a description.
  • Reduced motion is respected. The two components that animate check your prefers-reduced-motion setting and do not animate if you have asked the system not to.
  • Semantic headings and landmarks throughout, so a screen reader can jump by heading rather than reading linearly.
  • Tested on a real phone-sized browser. Every page template is loaded in Chromium at 390×844 on each build and fails the build if the page overflows sideways — a common cause of pages that cannot be read at high zoom.
  • No autoplaying video or audio anywhere on the site, and no interstitials or pop-ups over the content.

Known problems

These are real and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

  • The maps are the weakest part. Route and location maps are interactive panels that are difficult to use without a mouse and convey position visually. Wherever a map appears, the same information — grid reference, nearest postcode, start point, distance — is written out in text beside it. If you find a map carrying information that is not also in the text, that is a bug and we want to know.
  • Live conditions panels update on their own. The aurora and weather panels refresh in the background. They are not announced when they change.
  • No formal audit and no automated accessibility gate. There is no axe or Lighthouse check in our build, so problems are found by hand or by being told about them. That is the honest state and it is the main gap.
  • Colour contrast has been fixed where it was found — one undefined background token was making inset panels and table striping invisible, corrected in August 2026 — but it has not been measured across every page.

Safety information is never only visual

One thing we do hold ourselves to. Anything that could affect your safety on a hill — avalanche forecast area, winter conditions, water hazards, the standing route safety notice — is written in text. It is never carried by a colour, an icon or a map pin alone, because a warning you cannot perceive is not a warning.

Tell us when something blocks you

If something on this site stopped you, email hello@outdoorscot.co.uk and say what you were trying to do and what got in the way. You do not need to identify the technical fault or name a guideline — describing what happened is more useful.

If you need something on this site in another format and cannot get at it, ask and we will send it to you.

Last reviewed 6 September 2026. See also our editorial policy and ethics statement.