Accessibility

The globe is not the content

Everything the map shows exists as text on the same page: the ordered log of stops, each stop's date and place, its certainty in words, its editorial note, the source register and the previous/next controls. The globe is an enhancement over that document, not a replacement for it.

This is testable rather than aspirational. Every journey page is a complete document before any of the interactive parts load, and the site's own checks fail if a journey page loses its headings, its certainty legend or its tabs.

What is in place

• Semantic headings, ordered lists for timelines and stops, and a skip link on every page.
• Full keyboard operation with visible focus, including the tabs, the player and the landfall navigator.
• Certainty stated in words everywhere it is drawn as a line style, so nothing depends on distinguishing colours or dash patterns.
• A restrained live region announcing the current stop during playback, rather than announcing every frame.
• Reduced-motion support: the globe's drift, the camera glide and long transitions are suppressed when you ask for less motion.
• Save-Data support: the map and its libraries are not fetched at all until you press the launch button.
• Text that reflows and stays readable when enlarged, and layout that does not depend on a precise pointer.

Known limits

A moving three-dimensional globe cannot describe a geographic relationship to a screen reader in any useful way. We do not try to make the globe itself readable; we make sure nothing exists only in the globe. If you find something that is only in the globe, that is a fault and we want to hear about it.

Automated accessibility checks run against every page each time the site is rebuilt. They catch a minority of real problems. This site has not yet had a full manual screen-reader review, and that is the honest state of it — reports from people using assistive technology are worth more to us than the automated pass.

Report a barrier

Write to support.chartedvoyages@gmail.com. Include the page, what you were trying to do, the browser and assistive technology you were using, and what you expected to happen instead. If the barrier is what stops you reporting it, say so however is easiest and we will write it up for you.