Accessibility on a site that runs no script at all

Plain documents, and nothing running behind them

Each page here is markup, one stylesheet, one icon and, where a page carries them, images. No script runs on any of them, and the pages say as much to the browser directly, so a locked down browser, a blocker or a thin connection takes nothing away. There is nothing here to block.

A page also stops changing once it has arrived. No panel slides across the text, no box asks to be dismissed before the list can be read, no sound starts, no timer runs anywhere on this site. A reader who leaves a page open and comes back an hour later finds it exactly as it was.

Every page has its own address, the back button goes back where it should, and printing gives the same words in the same order. The list of stays prints as a list, with the hours, the nights and the figure per person on each line.

Numbers carry the meaning, marks only repeat it

Beside each figure in the list stands a small hatched square. The count of lines in it, one to four, is the step of the axis, and it is drawn as decoration and kept away from anything that speaks the page aloud. It has to be, because the same step is already written in words on the same line.

Nothing on this site is told by color alone, and nothing is told by an image alone. Hours of road, number of nights and the hours one night has to carry are text, to two places, in the same sentence as the name of the place. They enlarge, they copy, they can be read out.

That is not a measure added for this page. It follows from what the office sells: the whole order of the list is one quotient, and a quotient that a reader cannot get at is worth nothing.

Moving through a page without a mouse

The first thing the tab key reaches on any page is a link that jumps the header and lands in the body of the page. After that come the main menu, then the text itself. The header, the menu and the trail of links under it are named, so a reader that lists landmarks gets three useful names rather than three unmarked regions.

Whatever holds focus wears a thick outline, set a little away from the edge so that it frames the link or the field rather than sitting on top of it. The outline is never switched off, and the order of focus is the order of the markup, since nothing is lifted out of its place by styling.

One row of the list is one link, and that link carries the place, the state, the hours of road, the nights, the quotient and the figure per person. Arriving on it by keyboard gives the whole line, not a bare name that has to be guessed at from its neighbors.

Field by field, what the form asks for

The form at the foot of this page opens with a number: how many nights are available. Each control has its own label sitting above it and tied to it, so the label can be tapped to reach the field and is announced with it. Two fields are required, the number of nights and where the answer should be sent, along with a box confirming that nothing is held yet.

One field is placed off the visible page to catch machines. Its label explains itself to anyone who reaches it by key or by ear, and the instruction is the whole of it: leave that box empty. There is no puzzle to solve, no picture of letters to decipher and no clock on the form.

If the form cannot be used at all, the telephone number in the header and again in the footer reaches the same office, and the street address is printed there too. An enquiry by voice is treated the same as one typed into the form.

When a page blocks a reader anyway

Send the address of the page and what went wrong, in whatever words come easiest. A note about the site is handled like a first enquiry and answered inside one working day. Nothing has to be reserved, and no one is asked to prove anything to report a fault.

What can be changed is these pages, and they will be. What cannot be changed from this office is the site or the paperwork of whoever supplies a room, a permit or a guide at the far end. Where that matters to a reservation, the written offer says what a supplier needs and the office will pass a request across in writing rather than leave it to be found.