GIS accessibility resources

GIS accessibility resources

Resources to help you on your GIS accessibility journey.

General digital accessibility information

• Digital Accessibility in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II Digital Accessibility Information
• Introduction to web accessibility from W3 (World Wide Web Consortium)
• The beginner's guide to web accessibility from Deque

Resources from Esri

Web Map best practices blog posts

• Accessibility design principles
• Add emphasis by highlighting your area of interest
• Add emphasis to our map using your data values

Using Blend Modes

• Use blend modes document
• Blend modes blog post, 2020
• Blend mode helper blog post, 2023

Pop-up configuration blog posts

• Pop-ups: the essentials
• Pop-ups: Arcade essentials

Alternative text resources

• How to write alt text and image descriptions for the visually impaired from Perkins School for the Blind

Common keyboard shortcuts

• Designing and testing for accessibility in GIS and mapping blog post includes common keyboard shortcuts in Esri
• WebAIM keyboard shortcuts for NVDA

Colors

• Colorblindly colorblindness simulator available as a Chrome plugin
• WebAIM color contrast checker
• Commonwealth's Digital Accessibility Fundamentals: Color has a great amount of general information about color and accessibility
• Esri color ramps blog post on Esri Developer

Reading level editor

• Hemingway Editor

Automated testing tools

• Axe DevTools
• WAVE (web accessibility evaluation tool)

Video Resources

• Commonwealth's guidance on video accessibility
• Captions and videos blog post from UC Berkley