Accessibility and WordPressJohn E Brandt

@jebswebs

jebswebs.com

Who am I?

• Blended human services and geek needs.

• jebswebs since 2000.

• Maine CITE since 1999.

• “Develop” in Joomla, Drupal and WordPress.

What is accessibility?

• Technology is accessible to all people.

• Following “standards.”

• In many cases, the law!

Approaching Accessibility

• Moving target.

• Training and vigilance.

• Communal effort.

More on Accessibility

• Accessible (and universal) web design.

• “curb cut.”

• Resources

• mainecite.org/awd

• Webaim.org

• w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

• jebswebs.com

WordPress and Accessibility

• Good News…

• Bad News…

Good news

• Pretty damn good right out of the box!

• Concerted effort and continuous improvement.

• Open-Source mindset of community and concern for others.

Bad News

• Core – has improved…

• Themes.

• Plugins.

• Content.

WP Core issues

• 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

• Contact forms with un-associated text

• These are mostly fixable in themes

• Joe Dolson’s plugin WP Accessibility: wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-accessibility/

From Joe Dolson - joedolson.com

Themes

• Most themes are not accessible.• Color contrast issues prime.

• Finding accessible themes is very, very difficult.

• Building custom themes is expensive.

• Customizing themes for accessibility is not cheaper.

• Most accessible themes are actually frameworks

From Joe Dolson - joedolson.com

Accessible Themes?• Some (reportedly) accessible themes:

• Blaskan: blaskan.net/

• Skeleton: badeyes.com/services/

• Ambrosia: wordpress.org/extend/themes/ambrosia

• Scrapbook: wordpress.org/extend/themes/scrapbook

• Genesis child theme: wp-accessible.org/2012/11/release-version-0-2-of-the-accessible-genesis-child-theme/

• Twenty-eleven child theme.

• Twenty-twelve child theme.

From Joe Dolson - joedolson.com

Plugins

• Very difficult to predict which will be problematic.

• Follow the principle that the user should be in charge of everything.

• Do no harm.

• Probably have to test and see what happens.

• Think like an Assistive Technology user.

Content

• It only takes one content creator (user) to ruin your web site.• Headings.• Images.• Links.• Video/Audio.

• POUR• Perceivable. (See, hear, touch)• Operable. (It just works!)• Understandable. (Tough one…)• Robust. (Current and future technologies)

Headings

• Screen reader use to “browse” the website.

• Provide semantic meaning to the content.

• Provide organization to the content.

Images

• Cannot be “seen” by AT.

• Require Alternative Description (not Title)

• Decorative vs. Essential.

• Graphic text/linked.

• Charts, maps, graphs.

Links

• Embed within content.

• Use language that is understandable out of context.

• Style so it is clearly seen as a link (theme).

• Multiple links into UL.

• Large enough to be “clickable.”

Our website will provide…

Video/audio

• Caption video (synched).

• Transcribe audio.

• Side benefit: Improves SEO.

What else?

• WP Accessibility Team - make.wordpress.org/accessibility/

• Validate your site:

• wave.webaim.org

• W3C Validators (HTML and CSS)

• Color/contrast

• Full audit with live testing.

• Stay current!

QUESTIONS

Thank you

• Jeb@jebswebs

• @jebswebs

• jebswebs.com/blog

• mainecite.org/awd