The AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Team shares their expertise to improve the accessibility of WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and resources.
At WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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 Torino ’24, Joe Dolson asked Rian Rietveld to review the documentation about accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) on the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ website. What she found was that the information was hard to find, scattered all around the place, with duplicated and incomplete information.
At WordCamp Basel ’25, we worked out a plan to improve the documentation for WordPress’ accessibility.
Last year we centralized, reviewed and updated this documentation, creating one source of truth: The WP Accessibility Knowledge Base on wpaccessibility.org.
The goal is for WordPress community to have consistant, easy to find, reliable, and up-to-date information about what is important to create sites, blocks, themes, admin functions, or plugins everyone can use.
The Accessibility Team Handbook on WordPress.org now only contains information about the accessibility team, the WordPress accessibility coding standard and about how to contribute.
The advantage of updating everything is that you get new insights. Instead of 7 working groups, the team now has 3 focus groups: The accessibility of WordPress, The accessibility-ready program and Documentation and education. With each group its own contact person.
Theme accessibility-ready guidelines
Amber Hinds and Joe Dolson updated the theme accessibility-ready guidelines. These new requirements aare now published in the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base.
WP Accessibility Knowledge Base
All information about accessibility itself, originally in the handbook, has been moved to the WP Accessibility Knowledge Baseon wpaccessibility.org. The content is written in markdown and lives on the GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ pages of the repository wp-a11y-docs, owned by the accessibility team. Many people helped getting this documentation out there, thank you!
The WP Accessibility Knowledge Base now contains info about:
Start with accessibility, with an introduction to WCAGWCAGWCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/., 7 quick wins, the business case, how to get training and eduction and also our opinion about overlays.
Accessibility-ready program, with the theme requirements, testing process and how to find accessibility-ready themes.
Standards and best practice, for content & images, design & user experience, frontend code, web forms, legislation and how to document accessibility.
Test for accessibility, about automated testing, checks for content, design and frontend, WordPress plugins for accessibility testing, how to test with a keyboard and with a screen reader and links to complete WCAG checklists.
WordPress and Accessibility, about WordPress, WCAG and compliance, links to the accessibility team and team handbook and an overview of plugins that help support accessibility.
We are still in the process of updating and extending the content, but much of it is done or almost done.
Work in process
The Accessibility Handbook will move to a GitHub repository on the WordPress organisation later this year.
When all the documentation in the Knowledge Base has been reviewed and updated, the relevant documentation will be copied to a new section called “Accessibility” on developer.wordpress.org. So, in fact, we return the updated info to wordpress.org, where it belongs and also will be easier to find.
After this, all the old documentation about accessibility on make.wordpress.org needs to be updated to point to this new accessibility section.
Proper documentation is an ongoing job, we need to keep updating, reviewing and extending. The web, WordPress itself, support for HTMLHTMLHTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites., CSSCSSCSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. and ARIA, assistive technologyAssistive technologyAssistive 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, the way people use the web, the use of AI, it all changes. It’s a work in progess.
How can you help
Read what’s there, on wpaccessibility.org, and give us feedback. We are writing this for you, please let us know if you can understand and use it.
WordCamps are the best. Last WordCamp Europe, at the contributor dayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/, a table full of people reviewed the Knowledge Base and came back with useful feedback. When you are at a WordCamp contributor day, please join the accessibility table to give feedback on wpaccessibility.org.
Request content. Do you need information about a specific topic? Are there discussions on how to handle a specific topic or component? Ask us for help and documentation, resources, or what else you need. Open an issue in the wp-a11y-docs GitHub repository with your request or pingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.”@rianrietveld in WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
Are you a coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developer? Help us with examples, or point us to good examples to add to the docs.
WordPress agencies: consider sponsoring Joe and Rian. Or give your developers, designers or content creators time to work on the documentation.
But most off all: you can help us by using the documentation for your work, let’s make WordPress usable for everyone.
This is the proposed agenda for the bi-weekly AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Team meeting on Thursday, July 30, 2026 15:00 UTC
WordPress CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and the BlockBlockBlock 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. Editor
Accessibility-ready Program
Documentation about Web Accessibility
Open floor
If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.
When we announced the new accessibility-ready theme guidelines in May, the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) time set an ambitious timeline to re-review all themes and require action from theme authors by June 30th of this year.
Well, that date fled by three weeks ago, and the team hasn’t taken action yet to delist any themes.
The team has found that we need more time to be able to reasonably go through all themes and make progress, so we’re extending this deadline until September 30th, 2026.
What does this deadline mean?
As a theme author, we expect you to have contacted the accessibility ready team using our theme accessibility review request form. That review indicates that you have taken steps to improve your theme and move towards the new requirements, and are engaging on the process. As long as you have submitted the form and begun the process of fixing your theme, your theme will not be delisted from the directory.
On October 1st, any theme that has the accessibility-ready tag and has not requested a re-review will be de-listed.
What does “delisting” a theme mean?
Your theme is no longer visible in the theme directory. You are still able to submit updates to your theme, and all existing installations of your theme will still receive updates. But it will not appear in any theme directory searches or tag views.
What if my theme meets the requirements, anyway?
If you believe your theme meets the requirements, then submit the request form! We’re logging all the requests, so we have records of everybody who has made this request.
If I meet the old requirements, will I meet the new requirements?
No.
There are several new requirements that did not apply to the tag previously, so we expect that all authors will need to make theme updates.
These is the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.
The team discussed reorganizing the Accessibility Team’s focus areas on the Get Involved page by replacing the existing working groups with three primary focus areas:
WordPress CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and the BlockBlockBlock 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. Editor
Several accessibility documentation updates were published, including refreshed accessibility testing guides and an updated page on accessibility legislation.
The Accessibility Team Handbook is being migrated to GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ and simplified to focus on team information and contributor onboarding, while accessibility guidance will remain on wpaccessibility.org.
The proposed handbook updates also reflect the team’s new focus areas in place of the previous working groups.
Documentation work will continue with improvements to content discoverability, including better cross-linking, a user sitemap, and an updated reading guide.
With WordPress 7.1 BetaBetaA 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 released, the team’s focus has shifted to bug fixes and accessibility testing ahead of RC1. One remaining enhancement is expected to be included in Beta 2.
Contributors were encouraged to review recently introduced features, including Notes, client-side media and media editing, lightbox captions, the Tabs and Playlist blocks, revisionsRevisionsThe WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision., the Identity panel, and Command Palette updates.
The team also reviewed the progress of accessibility work for WordPress 7.1, with 24 accessibility-related TracTracTrac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets completed and 16 still open for the release cycle.
Accessibility-ready theme reviews continue to progress, though work remains slow due to the size of the existing backlog.The team discussed extending the review deadline, with the end of September suggested as a more realistic target.
A formal announcement will be made once the new timeline is finalized.Review efforts will continue to prioritize themes whose authors have requested re-reviews, followed by themes that have shipped updates.
NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.
This is the proposed agenda for the bi-weekly AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Team meeting on Thursday, July 16, 2026 15:00 UTC
Review the working groups listed on the Get Involved page (some contacts/groups may be outdated, with MetaMetaMeta 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. Working Group listed twice), and discuss consolidating them into 3 groups – General, Documentation, and a new Accessibility-ready Program group to make things more effective. (ref)
Updates from the working group
Documentation
General
GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/
Themes
Open floor
If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.
These is the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.
Call for Contributor DayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ Table Leads Nomination for WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. US 2026
Discussion: Pure White and Pure Black Color Combinations
The team discussed accessibility concerns around using pure white text on dark backgrounds and near-black text on pure white backgrounds, which can cause visual discomfort for people with astigmatism, dyslexia, and other vision impairments.
Current research and discussions around WCAGWCAGWCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. 3 and the Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA) suggest that extreme contrast may not always provide the best accessibility experience.
A proposal was made to create a TracTracTrac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket documenting authoritative research and evidence supporting the use of off-white and off-black color combinations instead of pure white and pure black.
Team members were invited to contribute research and references to a shared document to support the proposal.
It was also noted that GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ already uses an off-white color in many places, suggesting the use of pure white in the WordPress 7.0 admin color scheme may have been unintentional. A follow-up ticket will be opened to propose updating the color in a future point releaseMinor ReleaseA set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality..
For now we do not have much to share but will have more updates during the next meeting as @rianrietveld took some time off. And we already have monthly doc progress updates which is been shared as part of the announcement.
Work on WordPress 7.1 is progressing, with ongoing discussions around proposed admin bar design changes that may have accessibility implications.
The next few weeks will be critical as enhancements need to land before BetaBetaA 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 to be included in the release.
The team emphasized that accessibility testing continues throughout the release cycle, even after features are committed, allowing issues to be identified and addressed before the final release.
Ongoing Gutenberg work is focused on bringing the admin bar to both Gutenberg and classic admin screens for a more consistent experience.
Progress continues on the Icon, Playlist, and Tabs blocks, while work on the Table of Contents blockBlockBlock 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. appears to be stalled.
Accessibility reviews are still needed for lightbox captions, the client-side media experience, and the media editor modal.
Additional Gutenberg features are also under review as part of the team’s accessibility testing efforts.
The deadline for accessibility-ready theme reviews has been extended to allow more time for completing the backlog of reviews.
The team is currently working through more than 100 themes, with 79 themes still awaiting an initial review, alongside themes requiring re-tests, updates, and report reviews.
Once the backlog is cleared, the review process is expected to become more manageable by focusing primarily on new theme submissions.
The team also discussed the value of hosting another live theme review and Q&A session to help contributors build confidence in the review process.
NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.
This is the proposed agenda for the bi-weekly AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Team meeting on Thursday, July 02, 2026 15:00 UTC
Call for Contributor DayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ Table Leads Nomination for WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. US 2026
Proposed Discussion
Team perspective on the use of pure white text on dark backgrounds (and vice versa), including WCAGWCAGWCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. 3 and APCA research. (Proposed by Afercia.)
Updates from the working group
Documentation
General
GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/
Themes
Open floor
If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.
With: the feedback we received on the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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 requirements and the knowledge base during Contributor dayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ at WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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, as well as the work we did to process that feedback.
During the contributor day of WordCamp Europe, people at one table tested themes for the accessibility-ready tag. This gave us an excellent opportunity to see if the knowledge base works. We got useful feedback and the rest of the month we worked on processing this.
All the documentation for the accessibility-ready tag is now renamed Accessibility-ready program and is placed under one main menu item. Now the information is easier to discover and it gives us room to add more related documentation to this section. Some URLs have changed, we tried to catch all links but if you discover a still broken URLURLA specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org, please let us know.
Important feedback was: We need to enhance accessibility-ready guidelines with classic vs. blockBlockBlock 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. theme information and examples how to achieve the guidelines. More info about this in [issue #332].
The “Last updated” date now works thanks to @joedolson. So for example on Using headings in the content, the Last updated: May 22, 2026, at the bottom of the content with the metaMetaMeta 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. data, is now correct.
Rian hopes to update and finish the documentation about how to test for accessibility in July.
