Accessibility statement
Geronimo Engineering wants the MQPE Locator to work for everyone who needs it, including people who use a screen reader, a keyboard instead of a mouse, magnification, or who see colour differently.
Our target
We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA for the tool’s core tasks:
- finding a site’s Measured Qualifying Precipitation Events (MQPEs), each event’s dates, total and inspection deadline, and the steps it required;
- reading the forecast QPE verdict for a site or an area;
- finding a Caltrans project or a CGP construction site and its storm history;
- signing in and setting up alerts.
This is a goal we test against, not a certification. The site has not had a formal third-party accessibility audit.
What we support
- Keyboard: every control can be reached and used with the keyboard, with a visible focus outline. “Skip to results” and “Skip to the map as a list” links come first on the map pages. Menus, dialogs and the map’s detail cards close with Esc and return focus to where you were. In Storm replay, Space plays and pauses, the arrow keys step an hour (Shift for six), and Home / End jump to the start or end.
- Screen readers: pages have landmarks and a heading structure; results are announced when they arrive (for example “8 MQPEs at this site…” or the forecast verdict); opening an event moves to its heading. Data tables have column headers.
- The map as a list: the “Map as list” button next to the map lists what the switched-on layers show near the site — rain gauges with their latest totals, stream sensors, Caltrans projects, CGP sites and NWS warnings in effect — sortable by distance, each with a button that opens its details.
- Charts: each chart has a name and a one-sentence summary, and a “Show as table” button that lists every value.
- Colour: the map and chart palettes are checked for the common colour-vision deficiencies, and colour is never the only cue — marker shapes, line patterns, labels and the lists carry the same information. Light and dark themes are both supported.
- Zoom and small screens: the pages reflow at 200 % zoom and on screens down to 320 pixels wide (there the row of page tabs scrolls sideways), and work on phones.
- Motion: if your device asks for reduced motion, animations, smooth scrolling and the automatic start of Storm replay are turned off.
Known limitations
- The map itself is a picture to a screen reader. Use “Map as list” and the results tables instead; they hold the same information. Setting a site by clicking the map has an alternative: the address search and the latitude / longitude box.
- Drawing your own area on the map needs a mouse, pen or touch. The district and county choices, and the forecast and alert forms, work without it.
- 3D views (Storm 3D, 3D terrain, radar clouds) and Storm replay’s falling-rain animation are visual only. Their numbers are in the replay’s read-outs and sparkline tables and in the results.
- Third-party content — map tiles and their credits, National Weather Service warning text, linked State Water Board and Caltrans documents — is shown as its publishers provide it.
- Some small controls, such as the table sort buttons, are smaller than the 44-pixel touch size we aim for.
How we test
Automated checks (axe-core) on every page in light and dark themes at desktop and phone widths; keyboard-only walks through the core tasks; review of what each page exposes to assistive technology; and the colour palettes run through a colour-vision simulator. We have not yet run a full study with screen-reader users (VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS, TalkBack), so some problems may remain.
Report a problem
If something doesn’t work for you, please tell us: email [email protected]. It helps to say which page you were on, what you were trying to do, and the browser and assistive technology you use. If you need information from the tool in another format, ask and we will provide it.