Accessibility

Accessibility statement

Everyone should be able to check a flight, find their gate and plan a trip on this site, whatever technology they browse with. This page states the standard this site is built to, how that was tested, what we know still falls short, and how to tell us about a barrier.

Concept demonstration for City of Springfield RFP #008-2027

Conformance target

This site targets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA. That target was set before the first page was designed, so accessibility is engineered into the structure of every page rather than audited on afterward: semantic landmarks, a skip link, visible focus everywhere, full keyboard operation, text alternatives for every image, and no meaning carried by color alone.

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is also the technical standard the United States Department of Justice has adopted for state and local government web content under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A public airport's website falls under that rule, so publishing the conformance target, and this statement, treats accessibility as the legal obligation it is, not a courtesy.

What that means in practice

  • Every page works with a keyboard alone. Tab order follows reading order, focus is always visible, and dialogs and menus return focus to where you left.
  • The interactive route map and the terminal map have full text parity: every marker is a real button with a spoken name, and a complete list beside each map carries identical information for people who never touch a map.
  • Search results, filter counts and selections are announced politely to screen readers, and every count is also visible as plain text.
  • Status is never color alone. Every flight status pairs a text label with a distinct icon shape, and every map symbol is explained in a written legend.
  • Text contrast meets at least 4.5 to 1 and interface components at least 3 to 1, verified with contrast mathematics for every color pairing in the palette.
  • Animation respects your system's reduced motion setting. Nothing essential moves, and nothing flashes.
  • The site is offered in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese, and each page declares its language so screen readers pronounce content correctly.
  • Layouts hold with no horizontal scrolling from 320 pixel wide screens up, and text can be resized to 200 percent without loss of content.

How this was tested

Testing of this concept demonstration was manual and code level: a full keyboard traversal of every interactive element on every page, contrast calculation for every text and component color pairing, a review of each page against the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria, and layout checks at 320, 375, 768 and 1440 pixel widths in a real browser.

For the production site, that manual work is committed to grow into a standing program: automated scanning on every release, testing with screen reader users on JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver, and an annual third party audit, with results published on this page. An accessibility statement is only honest if it says how it was verified.

Known limitations

No site is perfectly accessible, and saying so plainly matters more than claiming otherwise. As of this release we know about the following:

  • Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese text is machine assisted and has not yet had native speaker review. Some phrasing may read stiffly, and a native reviewer is part of the production plan.
  • Flight information, phone numbers and email addresses are sample content for this demonstration, not live data.
  • Some sections open a short notice instead of a page. They are part of the production scope and will be built to the same standard.
  • The terminal floor plan is a schematic drawing, not a measured survey. Distances and proportions are approximate; the written list beside it is the authoritative record of what is where.

Under construction upon award

This page is part of the Phase 1 scope and will be built after award. The concept demonstration focuses on the highest-traffic journeys: flight status, nonstop destinations and the homepage.