Becoming more inclusive with enhanced accessibility features
You may have noticed that we’re pretty big on encouraging everyone to get outside and get moving! Back in the day when our app was a mere bubbly idea, it formed because of the very real benefits we receive when we’re walking and better connected with our surroundings, whether that be in nature or taking note of cool local culture and history.
Research shows that walking improves not only physical health but mental wellbeing too. Studies have shown that alongside a reduction in your risk of serious health conditions such as diabetes, walking also boosts your mood and creativity levels while reducing stress. Win win!
Oxleas Woods (not very wheelchair-friendly)
Kielder Forest (OMG it’s dreamy)
We’re big believers in everyone having access to these kickass advantages, which is why our app is free and will remain that way. However, we recognised that the first version of our app could have done more to include features that were accessible to all users to make your jaunting experience even more inclusive.
In November we launched version 2.0 with Transport for London after winning the Active Travel Civic Innovation Challenge to encourage active travel, spearheaded by The Mayor Of London. It was fantastic to collaborate on developing our app with a range of accessibility features and we hope you’ve found them useful. Since then, our team have worked hard to enhance the inclusivity of our design including voiceover improvements and different text sizes.
Key accessibility features include:
Filter walks by selecting the wheelchair-friendly feature when you search.
Find out station accessibility information for each TfL station provided by TfL’s open data.
Zoom in using iOS zoom features for larger text for those who are partially sighted, while low vision users can easily listen to all text using “Speech” in iOS settings.
Use “VoiceOver” in iOS settings to navigate more easily throughout the app with larger labels, clearer descriptions and a more intuitive order for those who are blind or have low vision.
We’re proud of our progress but know there is more to do. If you’ve downloaded our first Android version you’ll have spotted quite a few of these enhanced accessibility features too. We’ll be rolling out the rest of them as soon as possible to give your walks that extra boost!
Loving the features? Have a suggestion to superboost our accessibility?
As always, we’d love to hear from you guys to find out what more we can do to add that little bit of extra magic to your outdoor adventures! Get in touch and let us know what you think.
Happy exploring,
The Go Jauntly team