Tonight I learned about a new amusement park for children with disabilities.
The park is called Morgan’s Wonderland, and opens later this spring in San Antonio, in the site of a former quarry. It’s designed so that all kids can have a fun day regardless of their mobility or other impairments.
As they describe on their website:
The mission of Morgan’s Wonderland is to set a new standard for excellence in providing outdoor recreational opportunities for individuals with disabilities. We believe that there is a real need for a special place for special people, one that provides an oasis for people with disabilities, their families and caregivers who need facilities specifically designed to assist them in enjoying outdoor activities.
What a great idea, and a huge step towards giving everyone a chance at having fun, regardless of any physical disability. It’s not quite the same as making all regular amusement parks more friendly to individuals with disabilities (some, like Disney, do better on this score than others) but it’s a good effort, and seems to be a worthy endeavor.
Out of curiosity, I considered the park’s website in terms of universal design principles. Is it, like the park, truly accessible?
Alas, among other things, I was crushed to discover that they use tables for their navigation menu, and don’t provide a way to skip the navigation. These tables, I should point out, would generate this in a screen reader:
Page has one heading and twenty-two linksMorgan’s Wonderland dash The World’s First Ultra Accessible Family Fun Park dash Internet ExplorerTable with one column and one row Home Table endTable with one column and one row Home Table endTable with one column and one row Home
. . . etc.
Now I’m glad to report that the site isn’t all that bad beyond that. Most of it of it is high contrast. Links, while not underlined or following a standard color, do have underlines when you hover over them. They have very good alt tags for images. However, given how many layers of navigation you have to follow to access some basic information, it would help to have some sort of alternative navigation option – at minimum, a skip navigation link (which would also help avoid those table tags) or a separate sitemap.
Given what’s out there, it gets a passing grade in my book.
