Accessibility at SharedPics

Last updated July 2026

SharedPics is a time machine for places — and we want everyone to be able to travel in it. We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We're a very small team and we're honest about where we are: this page describes what works today, what doesn't yet, and how to tell us when something is in your way.

What we've built for accessibility

• Keyboard access: the time slider, forms, and navigation are standard HTML controls that work with a keyboard alone. The timeline scrubber is an ARIA-labelled range input.
• Screen readers: archive photographs carry descriptive alt text (place, year, and what's in the frame); interactive controls have accessible names; page structure uses semantic headings and landmarks.
• Reduced motion: if your system asks for reduced motion, scroll animations are disabled and nothing relies on movement to be understood.
• Contrast and text: body text is near-black on white and sized in relative units, so browser zoom and text-size settings work as expected.
• No time limits, no flashing content, no audio that plays on its own. The hero video is silent and decorative, with a static poster fallback.

Known limitations we're working on

• The map: the interactive map (MapLibre) has limited screen-reader support — an inherent challenge of slippy maps. Every seeded place also has a plain, crawlable page (linked from our sitemap) with the same photographs and information in simple HTML, which we recommend as the accessible route.
• Historic photograph descriptions: alt text for archive photos describes the scene briefly; older uploads from visitors may have thinner descriptions.
• Photo upload: the upload flow requires location permission by design (photos must be taken at the place). If this creates a barrier for you, contact us and we'll help add your photo.

Tell us what's broken

If anything on SharedPics is difficult or impossible for you to use, email hello@sharedpics.com with the page and what happened. Accessibility reports go to the top of the queue — we'd rather fix your blocker than ship a new feature.

Facts about this site that assistive-tech users may find useful

• The landing page and app work without JavaScript only partially; the per-place pages (e.g. app.sharedpics.com/spot/flatiron) are static HTML and work everywhere.
• No cookies, no tracking scripts, no third-party embeds — pages are lightweight and free of overlay widgets.
• This statement applies to sharedpics.com and app.sharedpics.com.