Accessibility with

WordPressWhere we are today!

Why WordPress?

1. WordPress is a free, open source CMS powering

23% of the web.

2. WordPress has an enormous number of active users

and developers.

3. Many of the accessibility limitations in WordPress can

be easily overcome, with a little knowledge.

WordPress Accessibility: the problems

1.Design & Layout

2.Administration

3.Features and Functionality

3 Problems: Design and Layout

The public side: WordPress for web site visitors

- Inaccessible themes.

- Inherent problems in WordPress core.

Themes pose challenges

- Almost all of the user experience in WordPress

comes from the theme.

- Most themes are not accessible, making several

very basic mistakes..

- Finding accessible themes is very difficult.

- Building custom themes can be expensive.

- Customizing existing themes is not cheaper.

Some fundamental problems.

- Most of the base HTML and functionality

generated by WordPress is great

- A couple things don't quite meet specs:

- Empty searches do not return an error

- Default values for “more” links are not

specific.

- Tons of redundant title attributes

- These are all fixable in themes

3 Problems: Administration

The admin side: WordPress for web site editors

1. How do you create accessible content?

2. How does the admin function with AT?

In December 2012, WordPress 3.5

included a swath of accessibility fixes.

What’s happened since then?

WordPress Accessibility since 2013:

- 3.6: Screen reader support for Custom Menus; post

versioning improvements;

- 3.7: Post row actions accessible; better color contrast

in default themes

- 3.8: Accessibility-ready Themes; improve contrast in

admin; most title attributes removed

- 3.9: Improved focus throughout admin; keyboard

access for theme install and actions

- 4.0: Major improvements to Add Media, Customizer,

help tabs, and widgets management

- 4.1: Coming soon!

But what’s really changed?

- Up through 3.5: Accessibility was incidental; new

features were routinely broken.

- Since 3.6: Accessibility improvements in every

release, accessibility is addressed early.

But what’s really changed?

- In December 2012: few tickets, little activity

- Today: 72 accessibility tickets (74, yesterday).

3 Problems: Features & Functionality

Using WordPress Plug-ins

- WordPress plug-ins are all over the map

- There is little to no quality checking in the

plug-in repository.

- Even if there was, checking for accessibility

would be almost impossible to do.

- Yikes.

What can you do?

Themes

Options for Accessible themes:

o Browse the accessibility-ready themes at

https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/accessibility-

ready

o Install and configure my plugin WP Accessibility:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-

accessibility/

What is an ‘accessibility-ready’ theme?

- Does it conform to WCAG 2? No.

- Is it an accessible web site? No.

- It meets these guidelines:

- https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/guidelin

es/accessibility/

- Who checks that? I do.

The WP-Accessibility plug-in:

o Removes redundant title attributes

o Enables skip links with WebKit

o Adds skip links with user-defined targets.

o Adds language and text direction attributes

o Strips the target attribute from links.

o Forces a search page error on an empty search

o Removes tabindex from elements that are

focusable.

o Strips title attributes from images in content.

o Adds post titles to "read more" links.

o Adds an outline to the :focus state for focusable

elements.

The WP-Accessibility plug-in also:

○ Toggles for high contrast or large font

○ Adds support for longdesc on images

○ Adds ARIA roles to HTML5 structural elements

○ Forces underlines on links

○ Provides a custom admin stylesheet.

What can't this plug-in do?

• Fix color contrast issues.

• Correct forms to add labels or give meaningful

errors.

• Fix heading structures for screen reader

navigation.

• Give appropriate alt attributes to images

• Correct for many other specialized

circumstances...

The Admin Side

o Accessibility is becoming more entwined with

normal development practices.

o That doesn’t mean everything will be fixed

tomorrow.

o Email me at joe@joedolson.com – if I can

reproduce your bug, I'll report it for you.

Using Plug-ins

• There are over 20,000 plug-ins in the repository.

You cannot assume that most of them are

accessible.

• Due to the nature of the WordPress.org plug-in

search engine, most of the results for 'accessible'

do not relate to accessibility.

• Most plug-ins must be vetted independently.

What's the summary?

• On the public side, WordPress makes very few

mistakes, and these can be corrected by a theme

or plug-in. BUT: WordPress only controls a small

percentage of the presentation of a web site.

• Currently available themes are still lacking a focus

on accessibility; but it’s now easy to find audited,

accessible themes.

• Extending WordPress via plug-ins is hazardous,

and requires careful vetting.

• The admin is improving steadily.

And what's coming up?

o There's momentum in the WordPress community to

improve accessibility at all levels of the project.

Questions?