Author Archives: esmi

esmi 12:39 pm on September 2, 2013
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IRC Meeting: August 28, 2013

The main focus of the meeting ( and the group) was still on one of our primary objectives — the development of a global 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) statement for WordPress. After reviewing Drupal’s accessibility statement again, it was decided to begin work on drafting our own statement that can then be presented to the wider community for discussion.

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#meetup, #team-reps

esmi 9:00 am on August 9, 2013
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Title Attributes Galore

The patches for Trac ticket 24766 are slated for addition to WordPress 3.7. This is great news for 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 who have been forced to wade through a sea of unnecessary title attribute verbiage. But we need to ensue that the patches cover all unnecessary title attributes and that those deliberately excluded from the patches do not present any 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.

Currently, the excluded methods, functions and scripts are:

  • the_author_posts_link()
  • rss.php
  • wp_fullscreen_html()
  • get_adjacent_post_rel_link()
  • _walk_bookmarks()
  • get_image_tag()
  • the_shortlink()

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#tabbing, #trac-2, #ui

esmi 2:58 pm on August 8, 2013
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IRC Meeting: August 7, 2013

A very busy & productive meeting. We’ve identified two high priority areas that we’d like to focus on in the next couple of months.

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#media-manager, #meetup, #trac-2, #ui

esmi 9:34 am on July 19, 2013
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Accessible Polls and Surveys

We are always looking at ways to increase feedback from disabled users of WordPress. The more we know about the issues that people face every day, the more we can advocate for positive changes.

We also appreciate that it can be very daunting to post a comment on a blog like this one. So we would like to look at using short surveys and simple polls as a way of allowing people to give us their feedback as simply and as easily as possible. That, however, raises a whole new set of potential problems. We need to ensure that whatever tools we do use are as accessible as possible.

This where you come in.

Please tell us about any accessible survey and poll applications that you know of.

#feedback

esmi 11:10 am on July 18, 2013
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IRC Meeting: July 17, 2013

Long time no meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. update! Our regular IRC meetings have still been taking place every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC But we’ve been so busy that it’s been hard to stop and provide updates.

Last night’s meeting focused on how to gain a better insight into the real problems that some WordPress users face every day. We also discussed ways to increase the flow of information from those users so that we can advocate high priority changes on their behalf. We’ll be posting about some of our ideas and asking for your help shortly.

#wordpress-ui log for July 17, 2013

#meetup

esmi 8:01 pm on June 25, 2013
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Next IRC Meetup

Just a quick reminder that the next IRC meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. will be on Wednesday, 26 June at 19:00 UTC in #wordpress-iu.

Everyone welcome!

If you have never attended an WordPress IRC meetup before, you can find all of the details you will need to join in the Codex’s IRC page.

One topic for discussion is likely to be the development of a proposed 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) statement for WordPress. To whet your appetite and give you an idea of what we could aim for longer term, have a look at Drupal’s accessibility statement.

#core-2, #development, #meetup

esmi 12:49 pm on June 25, 2013
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Should We Be Dropping the Role Attribute in Twenty Thirteen Yet?

Your feedback is requested on Trac Ticket 24629.

Cited example: Should the Twenty Thirteen drop the use of the role attribute on the 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.5 nav element on the grounds that the element, by definition, has the role of navigation? Or should role="navigation" be retained in order to support technologies that are not yet HTML5 aware?

My own opinion that the role attribute should be retained for the time being in order to support the widest range of technologies. Dropping it would offer only a marginal benefit in reducing page bloat. Please do weigh in with your opinions on the ticket.

#a11y-audit, #html5, #trac-2

esmi 3:25 pm on May 23, 2013
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IRC Meeting: May 22, 2013

Another small but busy IRC meeting on #wordpress-ui where discussion focused on assessing the translate.wordpress.org site for possible 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.

If you have a little spare time, please do try to contribute to the site feedback request. Any observation — no matter how small — is valuable. If you need some ideas on what to look for, please check out our Site Feedback Guide.

#wordpress-ui log for May 22, 2013.

#meetup, #testing

esmi 8:55 am on May 17, 2013
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Site Feedback Request

We have been approached by the folks over at translate.wordpress.org. They are keen to ensure that it is accessible as possible and would like our help to identify any problems with the current site.

So please take a little time, between May 17 & May 31, to have a look at translate.wordpress.org and give us your feedback via comments on this post. In order to support you and provide some structure to the feedback, we’ve prepared a Site Feedback Guide that should help.

We look forward to your contributions.

#feedback, #screen-reader, #testing

esmi 11:25 am on May 9, 2013
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IRC Meetings

Just a quick post to remind everyone that we are still holding a weekly IRC meeting in #wordpress-ui every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC.

The meeting on May 1 covered the variations in form handling across different screen readers as well as a recent issue reported with the Jetpack 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. As a result of the latter discussion, we now have a representative on the Jetpack BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. Group and Trac ticket #1710 has been created.

#wordpress-ui log for May 1, 2013.

On the May 8 meeting, discussion centred on the draft Site Feedback Guide. The guide is intended to both add structure to any site feedback as well as provide some support for non-technical disabled users who would like to join in. We hope to test the guide out later this month.

#wordpress-ui log for May 8, 2013.

#meetup, #plugin