Accessibility Team Update: July 9, 2014

WordPress 4.0 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. 1

In our meeting this week, Sam Sidler gave us the heads-up that 4.0 Beta 1 was about to be released and told us that it is “incredibly important that you test it and all of its new features.” In her post WordPress 4.0 Beta 1, Helen Hou-Sandi announces the release and talks about new features.

Testing

This Saturday, July 12, some of us will be testing 4.0 Beta 1 for 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 other issues. If you want to get involved the start time is 15:00 UTC. Log in to the #wordpress-ui IRC channel. Also refer back to and update the Make WordPress Accessible page for information about what has been tested and what needs to be tested.

Test Environment

Remember, we’re testing 4.0 Beta 1 so you’ll need an installation of WordPress with the WordPress Beta Tester 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 set to download and install “bleeding edge nightlies.” You don’t want to do this on your live site, so use a tool like DesktopServer by ServerPress to create a virtual server on your desktop computer.