Accessibility

The standard we follow

Civic Informer’s public safety pages for Arlington, WA meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA. WCAG is the international standard for making a website usable by people with disabilities.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II rule sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA for public agency websites. Washington’s Digital Accessibility Standard sets WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the state’s minimum from July 1, 2026. WCAG 2.2 contains every 2.1 requirement, so these pages meet both.

We check these pages against the 2.2 criteria by hand and with automated tests. Anything that falls short is a defect we fix.

What you can expect

• Keyboard. Every link, menu, button, form field, table row, chart and map control works without a mouse. The first Tab stop on any page is a "Skip to content" link.
• Visible focus. A solid, high-contrast outline marks whichever item has keyboard focus, and the page scrolls so the sticky header never covers it.
• Pop-ups. A tooltip or detail card closes with the Escape key. You can also move the pointer onto one and read it without it disappearing.
• Color contrast. Text is at least 4.5:1 against its background. Controls and the focus outline are at least 3:1.
• Zoom and small screens. Pages hold together at 200% zoom and on a screen 320 pixels wide. Nothing is lost, and nothing has to be scrolled sideways to read.
• Your own text spacing. If you widen line, word or letter spacing in your browser, every page keeps all of its text visible.
• Long names. A long street or neighborhood name is never left cut off. It wraps onto the next line, or the rest of it comes into view when you point at it, focus it, or swipe it.
• Screen readers. Headings, labels and tables are structured so a screen reader can move through a page in order. We test with VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, NVDA on Windows, and TalkBack on Android.
• Spoken updates. When a result count, a filter or a form changes, a screen reader announces the new state without you losing your place.
• Charts. Every chart carries a written description and prints its numbers as text. You can tab to a chart and read it point by point with the arrow keys.
• Map and panels. You can move the map with the arrow keys or with the pan and zoom buttons. The event list beside it takes the arrow keys, Enter, Home and End. Panels you can drag can also be resized by clicking or with the arrow keys, so nothing needs a drag.
• Large enough targets. Buttons and links are at least 24 pixels tall, or have clear space around them, so they are easy to hit on a touch screen.
• Reduced motion. If your device is set to reduce motion, animation is shortened to near-instant.

A few parts work differently

The map itself is a picture, so a screen reader cannot read its pins one by one. The event list beside the map carries the same events in words, and it tells you when to narrow the filters to see more of them. Those events are also in each daily report and on the neighborhood pages.

The shape of a chart is visual too. A screen reader cannot trace a line or compare the height of two bars. Every number a chart is drawn from is written out beside it, and the keyboard walk reads each point as you move through it.

Tell us what is not working

If any part of these pages gets in your way, we want to hear about it, whether or not it is named above. Tell us through the Arlington contact form. To help us find the problem, include the page address, what you were trying to do, and the browser and assistive technology you use. We treat accessibility problems as defects and work to fix them.

For help with Arlington city services, please contact the city directly. This statement covers only pages on civicinformer.com.