IRC Meetups

Most of the other WordPress groups have weekly meetings via IRC. Do you think this would be viable option for this group too? Does anyone have any difficulties accessing IRC?

If we did have regular meetups, I’m assuming weekdays would be best — for half an hour or so between 19:00 and 21:00 GMT?

Thoughts

#group, #irc, #meetup

Don’t “Let It Snow ” How Autoplays Can…

Don’t “Let It Snow.” How Autoplays Can Disable Visitors to Your Website

#animation, #sound

Aaron Jorbin is suggesting that the new Twenty…

Aaron Jorbin is suggesting that the new Twenty Thirteen should be designed and built “accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) first”. He outlines exactly what he means by this in What I want to see in the Twenty Thirteen theme. I think this is an initiative we should all support 100%.

#theme, #twentythirteen

User Videos – An Accessibility Angle

Over the last few months WP dev lessbloat has done a series of videos where he has invited in ‘real-life’ users to try out various features of the WordPress backend – and has videoed the experience.

I’ve watched many of these videos and read the transcripts of the interactions and they are a really great insight into usability, and assumptions that developers make about how much users understand about what’s expected of them. The most recent one is at: https://make.wordpress.org/ui/2013/01/09/two-more-menus-user-tests-focusing-on-this/

I’ve often thought that it would be quite revealing if somehow we could produce a series of videos of blind and motor impaired users trying out key bits of the admin area. These would highlight the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) issues perhaps more than words on a page could, and could constitute a powerful benchmark on which to base future improvements.

Does anyone else think this might be useful? And if so, how could we go about making some?

#testing, #usability, #video

Accessibillty Questions on the Support Forums

I’ve been trying to think of how we can provide better support for theme devs, pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors and site owners on the WordPress forums. I seem to recall someone asking about a dedicated AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) forum but, sadly, I don’t think there’s enough in terms of traffic to warrant such a forum yet.

However, what we could do is to use a dedicated tag — ie accessibility — to make finding these kinds of support posts a lot easier. with the RSS feedRSS Feed RSS is an acronym for Real Simple Syndication which is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format. This is the feed. for the tag pulled into here as well. I could also ask the support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations. mods to add the tag to any topic that they felt needed special attention.

Thoughts?

#support

Just published a new page of Useful Tools…

Just published a new page of Useful Tools. If you know of any plugins or development tools that can help to raise the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of a site, theme or pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, please let us know.

#development, #plugin, #tools

We now have a form that allows assistive…

We now have a form that allows assistive technologyAssistive technology Assistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology users to send us their feedback via email. My guess is that not everyone is comfortable contributing to a public discussion here. Longer term, I’m also hoping that we can build up a pan-disability panel of users who would be willing to help with testing.

#feedback, #testing

Stumbled across the Accessibility Widget plugin last night…

Stumbled across the Accessibility Widget plugin last night which looks very interesting. I intend to test it out as soon as I have some free time but has anyone else used it on a live site? I was thinking that we could have a page here listing similar useful plugins and tools.

#plugin

3.5 Media Manager Accessibility

Has anyone had a chance to test the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of the new Media Manager that came in with 3.5? I’ve not had time yet, but I am worried that it’s not fully keyboard accessible.

#core-2, #media-manager

Menus

Graham Armfield has asked for the Menu UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. to receive some accessibility attention.
Associated Trac link.

#core-2