Community, Events & Creators · Web + Mobile
StepCheck: wheelchair accessibility reviews with measurements
Accessibility notes for small businesses written by people who actually needed the ramp.
StepCheck is a place to write and read wheelchair accessibility reviews that carry measurements: door width, step height, the state of the accessible toilet. It is for disabled people planning a trip and for the businesses that want to answer the question properly.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does StepCheck solve?
A single icon tells you almost nothing. A place marked wheelchair accessible can still have a threshold lip your castors will not climb, an aisle a manual chair fits through only if two tables move, and an accessible toilet that stores the high chairs. The same word covers a ramp with a handrail and a plywood board leaning behind the bar. So you do the research yourself. You spin around street view hunting for a step at the door, you scroll photographs for one shot of the entrance, and you ring at four in the afternoon to ask a member of staff who has never measured anything. Sometimes you arrive and the ramp is real, the toilet is not, and the evening is over before it starts. Sometimes you skip a place that would have been fine. Both cost you an evening, and neither leaves a trace that helps the next person.
What would StepCheck do?
StepCheck would collect access notes as fields rather than stars. A report asks for the things that decide a visit: the clear width of the narrowest door, the height of any step or lip at the entrance, whether the ramp is fixed or fetched, the turning space in the accessible toilet, which side the grab rail is on, and how much of the seating a chair can reach. Photographs sit next to the numbers, taken from chair height. Every field can be left blank, because a report about one door still helps somebody. Businesses can add their own measurements and reply, labeled as theirs. Nothing gets scored out of five. The map would grow only where people write reports, and an area with nothing in it would say so.
How would it work?
- 1{'Look up a place and read its fields': 'door width, step height, toilet, seating reach.'}
- 2Check the date on each report, because access changes when a building changes.
- 3Write your own report after a visit, filling in only what you actually checked.
- 4Ask a business to add its own measurements, which appear under its name.
Who is it for?
- Wheelchair and scooter users who plan an evening around a door width and a toilet.
- Parents pushing a buggy, and people who manage one step but not a staircase.
- Small business owners who want to answer the access question with numbers.
How do you check step free access before you go, without an accessibility reviews app?
Ring rather than email, and ring at a quiet hour: mid-afternoon for a restaurant, mid-morning for a shop. Ask for a manager or whoever has worked there longest. Then ask for measurements instead of opinions, because a yes to "are you accessible" means whatever the person answering believes it means. Five questions do most of the work. How many steps are at the door, and how high is each one? If there is a ramp, is it fixed, or does somebody fetch it, and who fetches it late in the evening? How wide is the narrowest doorway on the way in, measured with the door open, from the frame to the door edge? Is the accessible toilet on the same floor as the tables, is anything stored in it, and which side is the grab rail on as you face the pan? Can you reach a table without going through the kitchen? Ask them to measure while you hold the line. Plenty of staff will, and a tape measure settles in a minute what a paragraph of reassurance never does. If nobody will measure, ask for a photograph of the entrance and one of the toilet taken from the doorway. Write down the answers with the date, the name of the person, and the number you rang. Treat any note older than a season as a starting point rather than an answer. Entrances get re-hung, furniture moves, and a toilet becomes a store cupboard without ceremony. If you arrive and it is wrong, say so at the time and write it down afterwards, because right now the only place that information exists is your own memory.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| Access icons on the big map apps | Free, everywhere, and enough to show that a venue has thought about a ramp at all. | One tag covers a level entrance and a portable board, with no width, no height, and no date. |
| Volunteer-tagged accessibility maps | Built by disabled people and volunteers, with far more detail than an icon in the places they cover. | Detail depends on who turned up, so a quiet area looks the same as an inaccessible one. |
| The venue's own website | Sometimes carries a proper access statement with door widths, ramp gradients, and a toilet layout. | Written once when the site was built, and rarely corrected when the entrance or the furniture moves. |
| Ringing ahead yourself | The only method that gets an answer about today from somebody standing in the building. | Costs a call for every plan, depends on who picks up, and helps nobody else afterwards. |
| Local disability groups and forums | Honest, current, and specific, from people using the same equipment you use. | Answers sink down the feed, so the same question gets asked again every few months. |
What would it cost?
Visitors
$0
- Read and write reports with no account
- Every field, photograph, and date
Business
$19/mo
- Add your own measurements under your name
- Reply to reports as the business
- A printable access statement for your door
- A note when somebody reports a change
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build StepCheck.
Questions people ask
What is meant by wheelchair accessibility reviews?
Wheelchair accessibility reviews are first-hand notes on whether a building can actually be used: the step at the door, the width of the doorway, the space in the accessible toilet, and how much of the room a chair can reach. StepCheck would gather those as fields rather than as a rating.
Does StepCheck have my town in it?
StepCheck has no entries at all yet. The map would fill in wherever people write reports, starting where the waitlist is dense, and an area with nothing in it would be shown as empty rather than left looking covered.
Can a business pay for a good access rating?
No, and there would be no rating to buy. A business can add its own measurements and reply to reports, both marked as coming from the business. Visitor reports stay exactly as they were written.
Is this only for wheelchair users?
No. The same fields answer questions for walking frames, scooters, and buggies, and for anyone who manages one step but not a flight. Notes on sensory load, such as how loud a room gets, would sit beside the measurements.
What if I only checked the front door?
Partial reports are the point. Every field can be left blank, and one recorded door width saves the next person a phone call. Nobody is being asked to survey a building or to carry a tape measure everywhere.
Who writes the reports?
Disabled people, the friends who travel with them, and staff who work in these buildings. Reports carry the date and the equipment used, because a rigid-frame manual chair and a large powerchair ask different questions of the same doorway.
When will StepCheck launch?
There is no date. StepCheck is built only if enough people join this waitlist and say they would use it and write reports. Joining costs nothing, and the guide above works whether or not it is ever built.
Where does this stand?
StepCheck is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.