Saturday, October 10, 2015

Mapathon Update

Amber tinted glass sign with wheelchair symbol and the word "Accessibility"
September 26 - December 31, 2015

As posted before, I am participating in a team effort to post 200 new accessibility reviews of places throughout the United States, using AXS Map, between now and the end of the year. So far I have done four reviews of businesses in my hometown


So far I have only reviewed places I was going to anyway, and so far, the places are mostly accessible. That's one possible problem with this kind of accessibility mapping campaign. If you're disabled, and you only review places you frequent, you're likely to miss places that have accessibility problems. Also, I don't go to very many places as it is, not because of barriers, but because I'm kind of a stay-at-home sort of person.

Still, I am committed. In the next couple of weeks, I am going to try to visit and review at least one place each day. I'm also going to set aside at least an afternoon or two to visit my city's older downtown area, where I know there are shops and restaurants that have spotty accessibility.

I can't stress enough how important it is for those of us who care about accessibility to contribute to projects like this. Putting site reviews on Internet-based maps is the best way I can think of to cover a lot of places and make the information easily accessible to people with disabilities and their families. And once the majority of businesses in a town or city are rated, the business community will start to take notice and want to get better ratings. That's the idea anyway.

Please join me!

1. Go to AXS Map and set up a free account.

2. Download the free AXS Map App to your mobile device if you have one.

3. Review the places you visit regularly.

4. Link your reviews to the Celebrate Access Equality 2015 Mapathon.

5. Make a day of it and target key business districts where you live.

6. Post your reviews to your blogs and social media.

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