Visitor Map vs Printed Map or PDF: Which One Visitors Actually Use

Most sites already have a map. It is on the leaflet, it is a PDF on the website, and it is screwed to a board by the car park. The question is not whether to have one but what each version can and cannot do for the person who needs it most: the visitor who cannot manage steps, cannot read small print, or has never been here before and is already late.

The printed map

Paper has real strengths. It needs no battery, no signal and no instructions, and a good hand-drawn plan is often the clearest picture of a site anyone will ever see. Its weaknesses are the same as its strengths: it cannot change. The entrance that closed for building work, the lift that failed this morning and the car park that is full for the fair are all still open on the leaflet printed in March. For a disabled visitor, who plans a visit around exactly those facts, a map that is sometimes wrong is a map that cannot be trusted.

Print is also a fixed size. Large print means a second leaflet, and the Equality Act code's auxiliary-aids requirement, which includes information in accessible formats, is not met by a 9-point legend. See what the Equality Act asks of your visitor information for the duty in full.

The PDF

A PDF map is the printed map on a screen, with the printed map's problems and a few of its own. The Government Digital Service put the case against PDFs plainly in a 2018 post that still holds: they do not change size to fit the browser, which makes them "especially troublesome with long documents and on small devices like mobile phones"; they are "less likely to be kept up to date"; and they "can often be bad for accessibility" unless made with care. A map is the worst case, because it is a picture. A tagged PDF can give a screen reader a description of the picture, but it cannot give the user a route from the Blue Badge bays to the lift.

For public bodies this is not only advice. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to documents published on a public-sector website since 23 September 2018, so a school, college, NHS trust or council that posts a PDF site map is publishing something the regulations expect to meet WCAG 2.2 AA, and an inaccessible map image does not.

The web visitor map

A visitor map built as a web page is a different kind of thing. The places are data, not ink, so each one carries a name, a category, a note and a position that a screen reader can read and a search box can find. The route from where you are to where you are going is text as well as a line: "Head for the main entrance, 110 m, step-free". It fits the phone because it was built for the phone. When the lift fails, the person on the desk edits the place and every visitor sees the change. Opening hours, queue levels and a closed entrance can change on the day. With Signposted the page also keeps a copy of itself on the phone, so it works without signal, and the accessibility statement sets out how it meets WCAG 2.2 AA.

Its weakness is the one paper does not have: it needs a phone and a way to reach the page. That is why the practical answer is both.

Which one visitors use

Visitors use whichever one is in front of them when they are lost. The Euan's Guide 2025 Access Survey found navigation was a barrier for 56% of disabled respondents and that 47% find access information hard to locate before leaving home, which is the moment a web page wins and a leaflet in the foyer cannot help. On site, the leaflet is in their hand and the sign is on the wall. The job is to make all three agree.

How to run both from one source

Keep the places in one place. The web map is the master copy, because it is the one that can change; the printed map and the signboard are exports from it. Put a QR code on the leaflet, the sign and the appointment letter that opens the live page at the right spot, so paper hands over to live the moment the visitor wants directions. QR code visitor maps covers what to print on each. If the site already has a drawn plan that people love, keep it: your own floorplan or guide map can be the visitor map, with the live places laid over it.

What changes is not the picture but who can use it. A map that only exists as ink or pixels serves the visitors who can see it, read it and get past what it shows. A map that is also data serves the rest, and the accessible wayfinding features are built for exactly that group.

Questions people ask

Do we still need a printed map at all?

Yes, for the people who want one and for the day the phone dies. Print it from the same source as the web map so the two never disagree, and put a QR code on it so the paper map can hand over to the live one.

Can a PDF be made accessible?

A text PDF can be tagged and read by a screen reader. A map is a picture, so tagging gives a screen reader an image description, not a route. The route has to exist as text somewhere, and on a web map it does.

What about visitors with no signal?

A Signposted page stores the map, the places and the plan on the phone the first time it opens, so it keeps working in a basement ward or a field with one bar.