At the contributor day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. of WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe in Basel @rianrietveld and @joedolson started the work to update and extend the documentation about accessibility 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 WordPress. This is what we agreed:
Scope
The current documentation in our Accessibility Handbook needs to be improved on.
We are going to work on up to date and well maintained information for WordPress, about what is needed to deliver accessible work and how to properly test for accessibility.
With clear do’s and don’ts, practical examples, and easy-to-follow documentation.
Setup
We update and add content in the in the current Accessibility Handbook. On developers.wordpress.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/ a section will be created for accessibility specific code examples, for reference in the Handbook.
The content will be moved from the current WordPress pages to markdown files in GitHub 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/.
We want to set this up as an open source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project, everyone with accessibility knowledge can contribute to the documentation. The accessibility team will project manage and safeguard the quality of the content.
Work
- The current content in the Handbook will be copied to a GitHub repo on the WPAccessibility GitHub account. We work from there to create the content in markdown.
- We will conduct a survey in the WordPress community on which documentation they need.
- The structure of the Handbook will be reorganised to fit the users need better.
- Once the set up and the main content is ready to go, that repo will be transferred back to the WordPress account and mantained from there.
- On the WPAccessibility Github account Rian will create and manage a GitHub project with all the work that needs to be done. Such as the content that needs to be rewritten and created. That way it’s easy for more people to contribute and work on different content.
- There will be a process of reviewing in place, to make sure the content is up to WordPress and accessibility standards.
- Code examples and other technical documentation will be published in an accessibility section of developers.wordpress.org or will be included in with current developers content, depending on the topic.
- The updated documentation and requirements for the accessibility-ready tag will be added to a logical place on the themes handbook.
Rian will set up and project manage this work. She will report every two weeks in this blog about the progress.
Roadmap
June – August 2025
- Set up the GitHub project
- Set up the GitHub repo on WPAccessibility
- Transfer the current content of the handbook
- Send out the survey
September – October 2025
- Rewrite and restructure the current content
- Set up a system of reviewing and merge rights
- Decide on new content and where to add that and create GitHub issues for them
From November 2025 on
- Maintain the current info and keep thinking about info to add or update
- Review and if ok merge pull requests from people who contribute
- Invite more people to work on the content mentioned in the GitHub issues
With many thanks to Milana Cap, Gary Jones and Virginia Ciambriello for the useful discussions during WordCamp Europe.
#accessibility, #make-wordpress-org-updates, #wp-a11y-docs
