Accessible Visitor Maps: What Step-Free Routes, Parking and Entrances Need to Show

The accessibility page on most websites says that the site is "fully accessible" and leaves the visitor to find out how. A disabled visitor plans a journey the way a pilot plans a flight: where can I park, how far is it to a door I can use, is there a toilet on the way, and what happens if the lift is out. An accessible visitor map answers those questions before they set off. This is what it needs to show, from the sites we have photographed and the visitor maps we build.

Parking that is actually usable

Mark the blue-badge bays as a place of their own, not a note on the car park. Say how many there are, whether they are marked, whether there is a dropped kerb to the path, and how far it is to the entrance in metres and minutes. A drop-off point with somewhere to wait is worth marking separately for visitors who are driven.

The entrance you can get through

Every building should have its accessible entrance marked, even where it is the main door, and especially where it is not. Note the door type (automatic, push-button, held open by reception), whether there is an intercom, and where the lift is once you are inside. A photo of the door is worth more than a paragraph: people recognise it when they arrive.

Step-free routes, drawn, with the catch

Draw the step-free route on the map rather than describing it. Then say what makes it harder than it looks: the gradient on the path by the chapel, the gravel on the drive, the gate that is locked after six. Honesty here is the whole point; a route that is step-free but a long uphill push is useful information, not a failure.

Toilets, changing places and quiet rooms

Accessible toilets as individual places with directions, with a note on whether a RADAR key is needed and whether there is a Changing Places facility. A quiet room or sensory space, if you have one, belongs on the map too, with its hours.

An "accessible visit" audience

Rather than scattering this across the site, give it an audience of its own on the page: "Accessible visit" as a choice next to "Family day out" or "Prospective parent", with its own welcome, its own to-do list (blue-badge bay, step-free entrance, accessible toilet) and only the places that matter. The template pages for attractions and hospitals in Signposted start with one.

The map itself has to be accessible

A map is a picture, and a screen reader cannot read it. Every place on the map needs a text equivalent: a list with the name, the category, the description and the directions link, in a sensible order, that works with the keyboard. Colour must not be the only way a category is shown. Tap targets need to be large. Text needs to resize. Nothing should move unless the visitor asks it to. Those are the basics of WCAG 2.2 AA, and they are the reason a well-made web page beats a PDF map every time.

Keep it true

The lift breaks, the path floods, the accessible loo becomes a store cupboard. An accessible map is only as good as its last update, which is the argument for a page your own team can change in a minute from a phone, rather than a document that waits for the next print run.