Questions Accessibility Updated on
A 360 tour and accessibility: what WCAG asks of you
The short answer
If the tour sits on the website of a government organisation, yes.
Government bodies and semi-public institutions in the Netherlands fall under the Digital Accessibility Act and must comply with the European standard EN 301 549, which adopts WCAG 2.1 level AA. Schools, care institutions and municipalities therefore have to deal with it. Since June 2025, European accessibility requirements also apply to part of the commercial services, such as web shops, with an exemption for the smallest businesses. And the practical point is simpler than the regulation: a 360 tour that can only be operated with a mouse excludes everyone who does not use a mouse. That can be prevented with a few choices during the build, and hardly at all afterwards.
- The Digital Accessibility Act applies to government bodies and refers to EN 301 549.
- EN 301 549 adopts WCAG 2.1 level AA as the requirement for web content.
- WCAG 2.2 has been the current version of the guideline itself since October 2023.
- The four decisive requirements for a tour: keyboard operation, text alternative, contrast and controllable motion.
Why this goes wrong more often with 360 tours than with ordinary websites
A tour is not a page with text and buttons. It is an image you move around in, and that image is the content itself.
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As a result, all four WCAG principles run into the same thing at once: perceivable (there is no text), operable (operating means dragging), understandable (where are you) and robust (a screen reader sees a canvas).
Many tour platforms are built around the mouse and the finger. You look around by dragging, you open information points by clicking, and you move on by tapping an arrow on the floor. If everything only works that way, the whole tour is unreachable for anyone who uses a keyboard. That is immediately the heaviest of the four.
WCAG success criterion 2.1.1 has no exception: all functionality must be operable with a keyboard.
The four things that really matter
- Keyboard operation
- A text alternative
- Contrast
- Motion you can stop
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- Keyboard operation. Looking around with the arrow keys, moving on to the next viewpoint with tab and enter, opening information points without a mouse, and a visible focus ring so you can see where you are. This is the requirement most tours fail on, and at the same time the one that costs least if you take it along from the start.
- A text alternative. A 360 capture of a school building is non-text content, and it needs a description. For a tour that means in practice: every viewpoint a name that says where you are, every information point a label that says what it does, and video and audio in the tour provided with captions. A tour with viewpoints called "Panorama 4" does not comply.
- Contrast. The controls float over the image, and an image is never one colour. White icons on a light wall do not reach the contrast. You solve that with a background panel under the controls, not with a heavier shadow.
- Motion you can stop. An automatic tour that starts spinning by itself is literally nauseating for some people. WCAG asks that motion lasting longer than five seconds can be paused, and the browser setting for reduced motion should be respected.
What to ask as a school, care institution or municipality
Do not ask "is the tour accessible", because everyone says yes to that. Ask these four things concretely.
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Also ask for an accessibility statement if you fall under the Digital Accessibility Act. That statement covers your whole website, and a tour that does not comply is listed in it as an exception. That is allowed, but you do need to know before the tour goes up, not after.
How Omnitour does this
What goes into your tour we agree in the call: keyboard operation, viewpoints with a name that says where you are, and captions on video and spoken audio.
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Then we take it along in the build from the start. That is cheaper than adding it afterwards, and for keyboard operation and contrast afterwards is sometimes not even possible.
We do not supply an accessibility statement and we do not do a formal audit. The four questions above we do answer, per tour.
Sources
A few follow-up questions
Does this also apply to a business without government ties?
Legally, usually not. Since June 2025, part of the commercial services, such as web shops, do fall under European accessibility requirements, with an exemption for the smallest businesses. And the practical gain exists regardless of the rules: a tour that works with a keyboard also works on a smart TV, on an information kiosk and for someone with a broken mouse.
Can you make an existing tour accessible afterwards?
Partly. Names of viewpoints and labels on information points can almost always still be added, and captions too. Keyboard operation and contrast sit in the player itself, and whether that is possible depends entirely on which platform the tour runs on.
Is WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 the standard?
The guideline itself has been at 2.2 since October 2023. The European standard EN 301 549, which Dutch law refers to, adopts WCAG 2.1 level AA. In practice you build to 2.2, because it includes 2.1.
Continue reading
- May people appear recognisably in a virtual tour? When you need consent for people in a virtual tour, why staff are a special case, what blurring solves, and what applies to imagery made with AI.
- What determines the price of a virtual tour? What determines the price of a 360 tour: viewpoints, shooting days, interaction and hosting. Plus the four questions that make prices from providers comparable.
- Do I choose a 360 tour, a 3D scan or both? A 360 tour is photography, a 3D scan a model you can measure in. When to choose which, what we do in 3D, and why it can also be both.