Graham Armfield 4:56 pm on July 8, 2013
Tags: accessibility ( 72 )

Accessibility Objectives for WordPress – Initial Thoughts

Some of us have been talking recently about pulling together some 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) objectives for WordPress. These are things that we feel could, or should, be happening to ensure that the profile of accessibility is enhanced with the WordPress community.

Ultimately, in order to support Matt Mullenweg’s view on the democratisation of the web by web-related software we want as many WordPress websites as possible to be accessible to as many people as possible. We also need to ensure that the WordPress admin screens are not excluding certain user groups from key parts of functionality.

With that in mind, here is our initial list of objectives. Please feel free to comment on these, and to suggest others that you think are also important.

Accessibility ‘mission’ statement

To have an Accessibility Statement page – something like the ones at Drupal/Joomla
Link to Accessibility Statement page to be prominent on all pages of wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ – link in footer maybe
Statement to underline that accessibility is important and committing WordPress to improving the accessibility of themes/plugins/admin area
Page to point to various useful resources and guidelines.
Encouraging Matt to launch accessibility statement in blog etc

Development/extension of coding and style guidelines

To ensure that best accessibility practices are used during all phases of WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development rather than trying to correct issues in response to TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets at a later date.
Encourage designers and devs to discuss all aspects of proposed new WP functionality with accessibility team.

Development of formal education and outreach programs

So that all WordPress core developers can gain a deeper understanding of the range of issues faced by disabled and elderly users.

Providing resources

Training etc on what accessibility actually is,
Why accessibility is important (a business case if you will)
How-to’s and guidelines for theme/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 devs and content authors

Theme/plugin reviews

Theme accessibility currently optional, but should we move to gauging accessibility of all new themes?
Some kind of tag or certification that theme developers can use to show they are committed to WordPress’s accessibility aims?
Is reviewing plugins for accessibility possible?

Appointing an accessibility lead (or leads)

Someone to oversee development from accessibility standpoint
Overall lead within WordPress hierarchy?
Accessibility lead within a WordPress release?
Accessibility lead within individual work streams?

Growing the accessibility group with active members.

Consider more use of social media etc to highlight work – Twitter, Linkedin groups, etc
Encourage dialogue within the make.wordpress.org/accessibility
Make it easier for people to find their way around blog archive
Reaching out to 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. team, Core team, etc

What do you think?

Please let us know your views on this. What’s important to you? What would you like to see?

#accessibility

_Redd 9:07 pm on July 8, 2013

Great list, and provides a great map for a path forward. Huge thanks for putting this together.

Regarding,

Development of formal education and outreach programs

So that all WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developers can gain a deeper understanding of the range of issues faced by disabled and elderly users.

I personally don’t think this should be directed only at core developers, or even mainly at core developers. It should be much broader, so that those who support the supporters are educated. For a real-life example, take the instance in which a manager instructed that the words “text size” small, medium, and large from the web page because it interfered with design, or made color choices that would have made it impossible for those with color-blindness to actually read the web page. The outreach should extend not only to those who code or design, but to those who manage, approve, fund, or are otherwise beholden to the creation that is a web page. If managers understood the impact of their decisions, then that alone would enable designers to build accessible features even at the most basic level.

Thanks again for what you’re doing here.
_Redd 9:19 pm on July 8, 2013

A couple more things to add.

1. In the “providing resources” section, what’s the possibility of actually creating a new, 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 in the support forums?

2. I don’t know how to categorize this, but is it possible to visit “how” accessible themes are made available through WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ and WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ theme search? . I understand the “accessible-ready” tag is a seal of approval, but I’m concerned that the tag may be unfamiliar to a casual user. Perhaps, if we could find out how a casual user searches for such themes (I’m guessing accessible, or accessibility, or a11yAccessibility 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)) then we could make a point to include those tags so the themes come up better in searches. Right now, for what ever reason, it’s not easy to find them.

Also, what’s the possibility of adding a pointer to accessible themes from this blog, or some highly visible location?

Thanks again!
Joe Dolson 3:06 am on July 9, 2013

The visibility of accessible themes in the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ theme search is essentially non-existent, as it stands. The theme repository has a controlled tag structure: only the tags listed on the tag filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. (https://wordpress.org/themes/tag-filter/) are allowed – there are no tags in the directory not on that list.

So, we can’t just add random tags; every tag needs to be a unique way of associating that particular characteristic of a theme.

We can encourage people to use whatever 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) terminology they choose in their description of the theme; but the “accessibility-ready” tag would still be the only one of definitively pulling up all themes that include that characteristic.

I’m not sure that the theme search tool is actually all that heavily used; but I don’t really know that. I’ve never used it other than to try and identify accessible themes; searching all terms I could think of.
_Redd 12:49 pm on July 9, 2013

Thankyou (as always!) Joe.

Let me try to amplify my remarks a little, because I’m not trying to remove 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)-ready” tag from the equation. Not at all. I just think we should be adding additional tags to address the common way in which people search.

I guess at the heart of it, I ‘m unsure why adding “random” tags is in conflict with the need to have a unique identifier. The unique identifier of “accessibility-ready” is a seal of approval, and we should “market” it that way. But to FIND accessible themes is something else. Additional tags relative to accessibility would help those themes surface. In my mind, it’s no different than having a unique web-site, and using multiple metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress.-tags in the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. for SEO purposes, or to assist in search, or in using #accessibility and #a11yAccessibility 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) in Twitter, yet having only one, authoritative Twitter site for the WordPress accessibility group.

For the particular case where someone is logged into WordPress, and searches for a new theme, they go to the page tab, “Install Themes”. The first way they’ll look for the theme is through a keyword search, so the addtional meta-tags of accessibility, a11y, etc. would help there. But the next place they’ll look is the “Feature FilterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output.”—they have themes organized by colors, columns, etc. Can we coordinate with whomever develops the interface so that we could have a section labeled, “accessibility-ready”, or “accessible”, or something like that?

I hope I’m making sense. At any rate, thanks again, and I’m always looking forward to whatever further input you may have on the matter. Take care.
esmi 1:16 pm on July 9, 2013

I ‘m unsure why adding “random” tags is in conflict with the need to have a unique identifier.

Because the whole theme repo system relies on a limited set pre-defined tags. Throwing it open to random tags would stop that system working effectively.

Can we coordinate with whomever develops the interface so that we could have a section labeled, “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)-ready”, or “accessible”, or something like that?

We already have someone. Well… two someones actually. Myself and Joe D. We both discussed this at length with the rest of the theme review team (who have been tremendously supportive). In order to develop an a11yAccessibility 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) audit that would work within the overall theme review system, we needed to come up with a single tag that didn’t “over-promise”. Tagging a theme as “accessible” was quickly dropped as – in reality – there is no such thing. A theme can only facilitate the creation of an accessible site. It is not “accessible” within itself. The tag “accessibility-ready” seemed to be the best option and the tag will be added as an option to the theme tag filter once the auditing process is fully up & running.
_Redd 4:01 pm on July 9, 2013

Thank you, much appreciated. I see I was ignorant of the mechanics of theme “tagging” in WordPress.

And, if 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)-ready tag will be added to theme tag filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. once the auditing process is up and running, then that fact alone will make the accessible themes more visible.

Best regards, as always!
Aaron Jorbin 4:05 pm on July 9, 2013

Regarding appointing an 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) lead, I’m going to strongly disagree with that. We are going to have much more success in the long run with WordPress if it’s not one person’s responsibility, but instead if everyone takes responsibility for it.

I strongly support developing some common educational materials. Joe – I would love to see your slides from WCCHi converted into an accessible HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. slideshow and put up on githubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ where others can contribute. We can then advocate that others use this base slideshow and present it at WordPress (and other) meetups around the world.
Joe Dolson 5:22 pm on July 9, 2013

I actually think that an 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) lead is necessary. Not so much because it becomes one person’s responsibility, but because it means there’s one person in charge of the decision process. There are aspects of accessibility that are decidedly subjective; having a lead helps to reach decisions more quickly.

Also, while the long-term depends on having a broader understanding of accessibility within the development community, short-term will benefit tremendously from having a go-to person to communicate with.

Posting those slides and sharing them for contribution is a good idea; I actually have a few different WordPress A11yAccessibility 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) slide sets, dependent on type of audience, and I could share them separately.
- Aaron Jorbin 3:07 am on July 10, 2013
  
  The person in charge of the decision process is the release leadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.. If they aren’t an expert should they defer to someone else who is? Yes. Much like they generally do now.
  
  The problem I see with having an 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) lead is that creates a situation where the entire team no longer feels responsible for accessibility. Every person that contributes to WordPress should own the accessibility of it.
  - _Redd 2:41 pm on July 10, 2013
    
    Hi Aaron, speaking for myself only, I agree with you that each contributor should “own” 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 my websites, but I feel just as strongly that there are many like me, who don’t have the expertise to do much of the significant work that needs to be done. It is precisely because there are “lead” members in the current group, who give of themselves not only with coding expertise, but with feedback, that I feel encouraged to work at learning the code that makes WordPress accessible. It would be too overwhelming for me otherwise.
    
    For me, an accessibility lead would provide the “backup” needed by beginner-level developers such as myself to enable contributions to the larger (and great) picture that is WordPress–and would directly facilitate growing the group with active members.
  - Joe Dolson 7:09 pm on July 10, 2013
    
    Alternatively, not having a lead means that no one person feels specifically responsible for finding an answer to a question; a lead would simply mean a point person.
    
    I feel that for a release, there should be a single point of contact, so that there’s a clear chain of communication during that release cycle.
esmi 6:01 pm on July 9, 2013

I actually think that an 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) lead is necessary.

I agree with Joe but from a different perspective. I think each project/development needs one person who looks at all phases from an accessibility perspective during development. Otherwise, it’s all too easy for potential issues to get lost in the excitement of coding a new feature. I agree 100% that accessibility is everyone’s responsibility but, from a management pov, I think having one person keeping their eye on this particular ball would be tremendously beneficial.
After Gadget 10:13 pm on July 9, 2013

I really like what was said in the original post, and I’ve also learned a lot from the comments. For example, I did knows some themes were tagged as being more accessible than others. If there were a way to search for themes by 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) I would have done that in the past and will probably do that in the future.

One question I have, and I’m not sure if this is the appropriate place for it, and where it says about getting more people involved in that make WordPress accessible group. I tend not to be very involved because I’m not a developer. I don’t know about writing code, etc. I’m just a user so I’m often unsure what I can really contribute. I do have an idea of something that would make WordPress more usable for me as a blogger who uses Dragon, but I’m not sure where I should post that idea.

Anyway, I’m really grateful that this group exists and that so much skill and care goes into making WordPress accessible. It really makes a huge difference. Using Blogger is a nightmare in comparison to WordPress in terms of access, both as a blogger with disabilities and as somebody who wants my blogs to be accessible to others with disabilities.

One of the things I like best about what was suggested above is to have more obvious access tags and info/links on every WordPress site because it really feels welcoming and inclusive as the user was not as tech savvy as most of you are (all of you are?) And I think it encourages other people to think about access when it’s just included everywhere as a normal thing that you might want to be searching for.
- Graham Armfield 7:06 pm on July 10, 2013
  
  Hi @AfterGadget. Just wanted to underline what esmi and _Redd wrote. This group is for anyone who would like to see 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 WordPress improve. And if you have any ideas for improvement we’d love to hear them. I’m especially interested to hear about your experiences with Dragon and WordPress – I think it’s an area that hasn’t received enough attention yet.
esmi 10:37 am on July 10, 2013

I don’t know about writing code, etc. I’m just a user

That doesn’t matter. We’d love you to join. The whole point point of this group is that it isn’t just for coders. It’s for users as well. That way, if we pool our resources, we have the skills & experience to recognise potential problems, develop solutions and get them into WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. As an experienced Dragon user, your input would be invaluable.
- After Gadget 2:21 pm on July 18, 2013
  
  I forgot to click “follow” so I could see the responses to my posts until now.
  
  I use Dragon for everything,including mousing. One of the things that is hardest to do when blogging with Dragon is formatting, such as blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. quotes, links, centering, inserting images, etc. One of the great things about WordPress for this is that there are keyboard shortcuts for most of those commands, so that I don’t have to click on icon to do them.
  
  However, to find out what they are I have to hover my mouse over the icon to learn that in the future I use alt shift A for making something into a link. There are two problems with this. One is that hovering a mouse over something is one of the hardest things to do with Dragon, and the other is that part of my disability is severe memory impairment so it’s hard for me to remember which things the keyboard command uses A or U or S, etc.
  
  So it would be really helpful to have those commands written out somewhere — either on the icons themselves or on some menu that could be visible in the same area as the text box, or ideally both.
  
  Because what I am doing now is needing to use my touchpad to hover over the thing first find out what the keyboard shortcut is— which is really hard on my wrists — and then write it down on a piece of paper that I can tape to my monitor (writing by hand is also problematic for me). And it will be difficult to get all of those formatting commands onto one small legible piece of paper.
  
  Maybe these are already written out somewhere and I just need to find them. I know blind users who use screen readers don’t use a mouse to click on icons necessarily, but I am guessing that the text reader reads the alt tag that tells the keyboard shortcut?
  
  I also am not sure if there is a keyboard shortcut for inserting media. Or for the various steps of inserting media. My memory is that including pictures has been harder for me since I’ve lost most use of my hands, but I can’t remember the specifics. Maybe some of you know what I’m talking about.
  
  I hope this is helpful and that this is the right place to post this.
_Redd 11:21 am on July 10, 2013

@After Gadget Your input is more valuable than you can even believe.

I am NOT a programmer by any stretch of the imagination, but there are many simple things I can do to increase website 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). When I try to improve websites accessibility, I am stuck with the horrible option of either writing it on sheer faith that what I am doing is right, or clumsily and inexpertly trying to use 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 to test it. I’m not qualified to use that technology, because I am fully sighted and have full use of my hands. I really need the expertise of those who are real and true experts in the use of assistive technology for real and true feedback as to whether the code “works”. We need you, and we need your expertese.
David A. Kennedy 2:29 am on July 11, 2013

@Graham: Huge thanks for putting this together! There’s a ton of great stuff here.

@After Gadget: Your feedback and involvement is essential! We developers need you to help ensure we do it right, and continue to get better! 🙂

Regarding the team lead idea: I think a team lead, especially for each release, is vital. I agree with Aaron (and all of you) that 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) is everyone’s responsibility, but I think a team lead would help keep communication tight. Yes, accessibility challenges center on code more often than not, but it’s also a communication issue many times. An accessibility challenge has to be explained effectively along with potential solutions and the benefits and drawbacks of each. I see the team lead not so much as being responsible for accessibility, but as the bridge between us and the developers and designers. So much of getting to good accessibility solutions is about trust between the accessibility advocates and the rest of the team. Perhaps rotating this slot would help too? A team approach might strike we balance we need.

Regarding the accessibility statement: I would love to see this. In addition to the normal these are our standards, this is our process and here’s what to do if you have a problem, I would like to also see some “heart” put into it. That’s difficult to explain here, but I see a big opportunity to for the statement to serve as an entry point for people who know nothing about accessibility to learn something. I think it has to have some passion to it, tracing back to how the web’s initial vision was something that everyone could use easily. WordPress has a chance to reach a lot of people in this way because it’s so widely used!

Regarding the coding and style guidelines/providing resources: I think creating documentation and resources that talks about how certain areas impact accessibility would be great. For example, if we’re developing theme resources, we might talk about how removing the underline on links effects things, etc. Again, I have some resources that might help, and I plan to do a blog series about the creation of Accessible Zen where I highlight some of this stuff. Happy to use that as a testing ground for some of this.

Regarding education: this is the key. I think we have to really reach the designers and content creators. They are the front lines of accessibility. Yes, the code is vital, but if I’ve been handed a design with little or no thought given to accessibility, we’re in trouble. Similarly, if I have a site that has content in it that has challenge after challenge, we have a long road ahead of us.

Those are my basic thoughts. Sorry for the long comment. 🙂 Also, I would be happy to and super excited to help with any of this. 🙂
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_Redd 9:54 pm on July 11, 2013

@David A. Kennedy AWESOME comments….I think we speak for all of us when I say that WE are happy and super excited that you’re here! 🙂 Please join us at our IRC meetings on Wednesdays, if you can, as well as continue to offer any more insights you may have on this blog!
- David A. Kennedy 12:03 pm on July 12, 2013
  
  Thanks, _Redd! I keep meaning to attend the IRC meetings, but always forget. I’ll have to set a reminder. 🙂 I definitely plan to continue to help out wherever I can.
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_Redd 1:30 pm on July 16, 2013

What’s the possibility of setting aside a special web page–or some other common online location–so that developers who need their code tested can put up the test sites in a central location, and those with the expertise to test the code can sign up for real-world testing?

Something similar to the Khan academy’s page for volunteers, in which lessons that need to be close-captioned or translated are available for volunteers to do so?

It would allow people who do not code a way to contribute–testing WordPress 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) and giving the feedback that is so badly needed.
- esmi 2:37 pm on July 16, 2013
  
  Would this be in respect of themes, plugins or coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.?
_Redd 4:57 pm on July 16, 2013

I’m embarrassed to say I wasn’t thinking deeply enough to recommend it for specifically themes, plugins, or coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..

That said, as someone working on a free, accessible theme, I (selfishly) think that a place to test 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) for themes would probably be a great place to start. Much of our discussion right now is centered on creating accessible themes, so doing so would help us gain some traction in that regard.

I think core has the tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. system anyhow. That’s intimidating to a lot of people. Having a more benign interface for themes would give non-coders a place to contribute. Lessons learned from the “crowd-sourced” testing could benefit everyone. We wouldn’t have to keep re-inventing the wheel every time an accessibility problem is solved.

And, if a solution works, then perhaps one of the more expert people in the group could take the solution to trac, for consideration of implementation into core.
esmi 7:22 pm on July 16, 2013

As themes and plugins are not “coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.”, they may not be suited for a TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.-like system anyway. From a purely personal perspective, I think it ultimately has to be down to the developers of these “3rd party add-ons” to take responsibility for a11yAccessibility 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) levels & issues in their own work. There’s only so much that WPORG can offer in the way of resources.

Speaking from a theme developer perspective (as that’s the area that I have the most experience in and where the most centrally coordinated a11y outreach may be coming from), theme developers need to use their standard tools along with the Theme Unit Test data to check a11y levels. Longer term they’ll have the option of submitting their theme for an a11y audit as part of a WPORG theme submission – which should (hopefully) give them some valuable feedback. There’s also the theme reviewers mailing list for additional support – although if a11y-specific questions create too much traffic, there might be room later on to establish a better support resource,. Ideally that would be here.

Does that help at all?
- _Redd 1:44 pm on July 18, 2013
  
  In light of last night’s meeting, what do you think of the idea of asking for non-coding volunteers, who use screen readers or other 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, to test the survey forms for us?
  - esmi 2:58 pm on July 18, 2013
    
    I haven’t had much success with that so far. 🙁
_Redd 7:38 pm on July 16, 2013

That does help–and again, thank you.
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