Accessibility statement

The New York City Association of Hotel Concierges wants members, applicants, guests visiting New York and our partners to be able to use this site, whatever their abilities and whatever device or assistive technology they use. Accessibility is part of how we build every page, not an extra.

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and also adopted as the international standard ISO/IEC 40500:2025. The site is partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA: most of it meets the standard, and the parts that do not yet are listed under “Known limitations” below.

• Every page is built from one set of tested components: a visible focus outline, a label on every field, and error messages placed next to the field they belong to.
• You can use the whole site with a keyboard, and every page starts with a link that skips to the main content.
• Colors are chosen for contrast, including a focus outline that stands out on light and dark backgrounds.
• Page structure is marked up with headings, landmarks and lists, and every page has a title that says what it is.
• The photos on the home page have a pause button, stop while you point at their caption or controls or move into them with the keyboard, and do not move at all if your device asks for reduced motion.
• The strip of member hotels' logos moves slowly: it has a pause button, stops while you point at it, while one of its logos has the keyboard's focus or while it is out of view, and does not move at all if your device asks for reduced motion.
• Forms keep what you typed if something needs correcting, and the application saves as you go, so you can take your time and finish on any device.
• Messages such as “saved” or the characters left in a field reach screen readers when something changes, without interrupting you at every keystroke.
• Signing in never needs a puzzle: you can use a password manager, paste your password or ask for a sign-in link by email; with two-step verification on, you sign in with your password and a code from your authenticator app, which you can paste. No form asks you to solve a puzzle or prove you are a person: the newsletter sign-up and the start of an application are protected by checks that run out of sight on our server, and when one of them asks you to send the form again, what you typed stays in it.
• Photos in the media library and in event albums need a description before they appear on the site, and images in our emails need one unless they are only decoration.
• The public pages and the main portal and Board screens fit a screen 320 pixels wide, the size of a small phone or of a page zoomed to 400%, without scrolling sideways (wide tables scroll on their own), and the member pass shrinks with the screen while its code still scans.
• Automated accessibility checks (axe, with the WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA rules) cover the public pages, every step of the application and the main portal and Board screens at the width of a computer screen and of a phone, and open dialogs and the photo viewer; a finding that axe rates serious or critical stops the change. We run them, together with keyboard tests, whenever pages or features change.

These parts do not fully meet the standard yet. For each one there is another way to get what you need, and we are working on them.

• PDF files made by the site, such as the Ethics and Professional Standards and the record of a logo-use decision, are not tagged for screen readers. The same text is on web pages: the Ethics and Professional Standards page and the decision shown in the corporate portal.
• Invoices and payments open on pages run by Intuit (QuickBooks), which we do not control; Intuit describes its own work on its accessibility page (opens in a new tab). Your invoices are also listed on the portal's Billing page, you can pay by check, and the Treasurer can help at treasurer@nycahc.org.
• Some time limits exist for security or fairness: a sign-in link works for 15 minutes and a link to set a new password for 60, the code of two-step verification must be entered within 10 minutes of the password, and a seat offered from a waitlist must be confirmed within the time shown. You can ask for a new link or start signing in again at any time, and if you need more time to confirm a seat, write to social@nycahc.org.

The site is designed for the current versions of Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Edge on computers and phones, and for the screen readers and magnifiers built into them and into the operating system. Our automated tests run in Chromium, the engine of Chrome and Edge, at the size of a computer screen and of a phone. A manual review with VoiceOver and Safari on a Mac and an iPhone is planned. The site relies on HTML, CSS, WAI-ARIA and JavaScript; features such as the menu on small screens, confirmation dialogs, autosave, the check-in scanner and the photo viewer need JavaScript.

If anything on the site is hard to use, we will help you get the information or finish the task another way. For example, we can send information by email in plain text, fill in a form with you, or take your reply to an event invitation by email.

Please tell us about any barrier you meet at contact@nycahc.org, or by mail at the address below. It helps to include the address of the page, what you were trying to do and what happened, and, if you like, your device, browser and any assistive technology you use.

We aim to reply within five business days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, write to the Board of Directors at bod@nycahc.org.

This statement is based on a self-evaluation by the team that built the site: the automated checks and keyboard tests described above, run whenever pages or features change, and a review of the code and the design system. A manual review of key tasks with a keyboard and the VoiceOver screen reader (signing up, applying, replying to an event, checking in and paying an invoice) is planned. The site has not had an independent audit.