Call for Team Rep Nomination – December 2022

As usual at this time of the year, we’re opening a call for (at least) one 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) Team RepTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts.. I’ve been Team Rep for almost two-and-a-half years, which is way longer than usual, and now it’s really time for me to step down. It’s been an incredible journey, I learned a lot, and I’m really grateful to everyone who I got to know during my term.

To learn more about the role, you can check the article about what it means to be a Team Rep. Here are the main takeaways.

  • Team Rep is an administrative role, not a Lead one.
  • Letting go of the Team Rep title is not a loss of status, just a handing off of responsibilities.
  • Someone who is a leader in a team can lead whether they are doing the team rep job or not.

Traditionally, the Accessibility Team has had two Team Reps, which allows them to share responsibilities, divide tasks and cover each other when needed. Since the election of @joesimpsonjr, we switched to having three Team Reps (at least temporarily) to reduce the burden even more.

If you want to be considered for the role or know someone who would be a great fit, you have the opportunity to nominate yourself or others by adding a comment to this post. Remember that if someone proposes your name, but you don’t feel like accepting, you should feel more than free to say no: we will consider your nomination only if you agree.

Nominations review will happen during the meeting on Friday, December 16, 2022, at 16:00 UTC. We’ll decide if and how to manage the voting round, depending on the number of submissions. During the transition period, we will support the new Team Reps to be ready and operational as soon as they feel like it.

If you have questions about the Team Rep role or the nomination process, please feel free to reach out to @alexstine, @joesimpsonjr, or me (@ryokuhi) in the comments or on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., either with a Direct Message or in the #accessibility channel.

Props go to @alexstine and @joesimpsonjr for reviewing this post before publication.

#team-reps

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: March 17, 2023

These are the weekly notes for 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) Team meeting that happens on Fridays. You can read the full transcript here.

NOTE: We need YOUR help. Stefano cannot facilitate our next three weekly Bug Scrubs (March 24th, March 31st, and April 7th) and we need someone to step in and help. Please reach out here or on our SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel if you can facilitate the Bug Scrub on these dates. Thanks in advance.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

General Team

@ryokuhi provided the following statistics:

  • There are 10 tickets in the Awaiting Review queue, all reviewed at least once.
  • There are 2 open tickets in the 6.2 Milestone (one about the About Page and the other about the dashboard banner for 6.2). 18 accessibility tickets have been committed so far in the next major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality..
  • We have already started reviewing tickets in the 6.3 milestone, to get a general idea about what to focus on during the next release. There are at the moment 15 tickets in the milestone, and since last week we reviewed 11 of them.

GutenbergGutenberg The 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/ Team

@annezazu shared the following update for discussion:

  • I want to note the navigation section of browse mode. While it’s removed for 6.2, it’s going to continue in the Gutenberg 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 and it would be excellent to continue the feedback cycle there to make sure it’s super robust for 6.3. It’s also part of setting the stage for reintroducing content editing for 6.3! Additional discussion by @alexstine and @joedolson can be found at this timepoint on Slack.

Media and 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.

@joedolson provided the following updates on Media and Meta for discussion:

  • Media: starting to scrub through and add tickets to the 6.3 milestone, will possibly have more to add by the meeting.
  • Meta: there’s a new slack channel #website-redesign that may make it easier to track the planning for the ongoing redesign 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/. anybody interested in that should probably join that channel.

Open floor

@ryokuhi asked: Due to Daylight Savings Time in certain areas, are we going to keep the same UTC time for bug scrubs and meetings? Also, we’re beginning to get a general idea of what we’ll have to do in the incoming months and should discuss. For example, specific tickets require special attention, we’ll bring them up during future meetings.

@joesimpsonjr mentioned being flexible to those who aren’t or are adversely impacted by Daylight Savings Time (changing or keeping times the same).

We’ll keep the meeting time the same unless someone raises a concern.

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments of upcoming agenda.

Read the full discussion in the Open Floor section of the meeting’s transcript.

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: March 17, 2023

This is the proposed agenda for the weekly 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) Team meeting on Friday, March 17, 2023, 16:00 UTC.

  • Updates from working groups:
    • Design
    • Documentation
    • General
    • GutenbergGutenberg The 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • Themes
  • Open floor

If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.

The Accessibility Team bug-scrub will also be held on Friday, March 17, 2023, 15:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. (requires registration).

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: March 3, 2023

These are the weekly notes for 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) Team meeting that happens on Fridays. You can read the full transcript here.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

General Team

@ryokuhi provided the following update:

  • There are 11 tickets in the Awaiting Review queue, with only one unreviewed (probably a good candidate for closing, as it’s too generic).
  • There are 5 open tickets in the 6.2 Milestone (3 which require coordination with GutenbergGutenberg The 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/, and 2 about the About Page and the dashboard banner for 6.2). 15 accessibility tickets have been committed so far in the next major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality..
  • There are already 12 tickets milestoned for 6.3, which we’ll start reviewing beginning next week..

Gutenberg Team (@annezazu with comments from @poena)

Mainly want to flag a few issues/PRs related to accessibility! In other news, I’m also working on a draft of improvements for 6.2 with @alexstine and @joedolson

  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/42373
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/48054
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/48204
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/47241 @poena, this wasn’t labeled 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) but seems to be. Added the label but lmk if that was incorrect.
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/47898
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/48015

47241 was… "Overwritten" either when the navigation 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. menu was added to the browse mode sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme., or when the edit button was removed, or when the save button was added, without replacement headings. I have not been able to keep up… Its all very discouraging. I guess maybe someone saw it as pointless because the H1 ticket has not been resolved. Stefano mentioned that the last for items have been closed.

Media and 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.

@joedolson (as per Stefano) reports that we’ll start planning how to handle 6.3 tickets in the next few bug scrubs.

Open floor

@joedolson talked a bit about plans for 6.3:

One thing we need to prioritize in the next cycle is polishing the editor experience. It has a lot of technical accessibility – e.g., things that are possible to do, but it’s seriously lacking in usability with AT. We should put a lot of attention into trying to clean that up.

There are two areas I’d like to focus on:

  1. finishing off outstanding accessibility tickets. There are a lot of open issues, and I’d like to put pressure on those.
  2. Polishing the output of some of the sketchier blocks, e.g. tables.

If we, as a team, put more focus on the editor, I think we can make better progress. We just need to spend a cycle where it’s our primary focus, rather than something we get to ad the end of some bug scrubs.

Read the full discussion in the Open Floor section of the meeting’s transcript.

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: March 3, 2023

This is the proposed agenda for the weekly 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) Team meeting on Friday, March 3, 2023, 16:00 UTC.

  • Updates from working groups:
    • Design
    • Documentation
    • General
    • GutenbergGutenberg The 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • Themes
  • Open floor

If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.

The Accessibility Team bug-scrub will also be held on Friday, March 3, 2023, 15:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. (requires registration).

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: February 17, 2023

This is the proposed agenda for the weekly 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) Team meeting on Friday, February 17, 2023, 16:00 UTC.

  • Updates from working groups:
    • Design
    • Documentation
    • General
    • GutenbergGutenberg The 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • Themes
  • Open floor

If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.

The Accessibility Team bug-scrub will also be held on Friday, February 17, 2023, 15:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. (requires registration).

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Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 3, 2023

These are the weekly notes for 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) Team meeting that happens on Fridays. You can read the full transcript on our SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel and the meeting’s agenda here.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Documentation Team

@azhiyadev provided the following update:

  • @joedolson has updated all docs on make.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//accessibility. Two new documents have been added about online courses and 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 accessibility;
  • Carolina Nymark has updated the theme developer handbook and it is ready for review. An issue has been created for it here;
  • @ryokuhi shared a few statistics regarding the next major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality.: 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 happens next week: there are 9 closed tickets, already committed, with 13 tickets still open. We already decided to move at least of couple of them to 6.3, but for the others we’re waiting to move them until it’s necessary. There’s also an unreviewed ticket in the Awaiting Review queue, we’ll have a look at it next week.

Media Team

@joedolson is working to get as much done as possible by beta 1 on Tuesday. But the larger issues for 6.2 are not going to happen and will be rescheduled for 6.3.

Open floor

  • @joedolson mentioned if anyone has anything ready for review, pingPing The 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.” him on the ticket.
  • @joesimpsonjr shared his first experience testing FSE, thanking Joe Dolson for his assistance.
  • @joedolson let the group know that he is receiving sponsorship from GoDaddy to contribute to WordPress about 12 hours a week, that will help to accelerate my ability to contribute. Thanks to GoDaddy for your support!

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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: February 3, 2023

This is the proposed agenda for the weekly 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) Team meeting on Friday, February 3, 2023, 16:00 UTC.

  • Updates from working groups:
    • Design
    • Documentation
    • General
    • GutenbergGutenberg The 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • Themes
  • Open floor

If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.

The Accessibility Team bug-scrub will also be held on Friday, February 3, 2023, 15:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. (requires registration).

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: January 20, 2023

These are the weekly notes for 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) Team meeting that happens on Fridays. You can read the full transcript on our SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel and the meeting’s agenda here.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Documentation

@ryokuhi updated the group on a discussion in the channel about links opening in a new tab and it was pointed out that there isn’t anything about it in the Accessibility Handbook. @joedolson clarified provided a link to this topic in the Docs guide although without the accessibility reasons and mention by @sabernhardt it’s also in the Accessibility Handbook. Brings up the need for cross-referencing. Anyone interested, please make a Pull Request to the Doc Style Guide to add the cross-reference.

General

@ryokuhi shared that the General Team is:

  • currently focusing on the Awaiting Review queue and on tickets milestoned for 6.2;
  • at the moment, all the 12 tickets Awaiting Review have been reviewed at least once;
  • there are 15 tickets milestoned for 6.2, with 14 of them already reviewed in the last two bug scrubs;
  • following discussion on #56228 last week, we need a few eyes on the related Gutenberg Issue 42373, so that we set the time frame to milestone the related coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. issue; and
  • 6 more tickets were already committed for the next release.

GutenbergGutenberg The 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/

Before the meeting, @annezazu reported this for the Gutenberg Team and welcomes comment:

  • Latest update for phase 2 items: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33094#issuecomment-1384570000
  • Accessibility review for the offcanvas editor issue: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/46939
  • A run down of items for the training/docs/polyglot crew that might be helpful: https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/01/13/information-sources-for-wordpress-6-2/#comment-3629

Media

@joedolson shared a post on media management that we may want to discuss during our next Media Team meeting.

Open floor

Notes during Open Floor:

  • Our Call for Team Rep nomination is still open at https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2022/12/02/call-for-team-rep-nomination-december-2022/. We’d love for someone to step forward to support this team’s efforts; and
  • @joedolson reiterated the need for testing on the FSE experience; anybody can do it: just spend time with the environment and see what accessibility issues you spot.

#accessibility, #meeting-notes