Week in WPa11y – April 24, 2017 – Make WordPress Accessible

About Us

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 shares accessibility expertise across the project to improve the accessibility of WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and resources.

WordPress targets WCAG 2.1 at level AA as the standard for development.

Learn More

For support related to WordPress & accessibility, visit the WordPress Accessibility forum.

You can also ask questions during Accessibility Team Office Hours every Wednesday at 14:00 UTC in the accessibility channel in 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/..

Topics of Discussion

Settings APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. project
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/ editor 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
Browser support changes
Screen reader text PR
Tickets
New Widgets to test

Settings API

https://github.com/wpaccessibility/settings-api-enhanced

The current approach involves a redesign of the settings pages that is being discussed with some members of the design team.

The next step is to process the thoughts @helen gave use on the CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. naming conventions. See: https://github.com/wpaccessibility/settings-api-enhanced/issues/6#issuecomment-294011891

Gutenberg Editor Plugin

https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg

@afercia recommended that we install and test the plugin. Instructions are here: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

Note that it is not a conventional plugin so there are some specific steps to follow.

@afercia has submitted a few issues based on the mockups but real (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)) testing has yet to start.

Changes in Browser support

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/04/23/target-browser-coverage/

We discussed how the browser support changes would impact the screen reader text PR. @sami.keijonen said we should not use our time so much of finding things to remove at this point. But test new things like settings API and editor and make changes as needed.

Screen reader text PR

https://github.com/wpaccessibility/a11ythemepatterns/pull/10

@ffood submitted a PR to update the screen reader class in the A11y Theme Patterns repo in GithubGitHub 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/.

There was some discussion about updating the class in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. as well.

We agreed to merge the PR and also open a new issue in core to modernize the class. The changes in core should take into account end of support for IE 8-9-10

Tickets

Two tickets were closed this week.

#36853: Safari and VoiceOver don’t announce repeated, identical, aria live messages – https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/36853
#31476: Semantic elements for non-link links: /wp-admin/includes/widgets.php – https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/31476

Widgets

There are 2 new widgets to test

Image WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. – https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/04/12/image-widget-merge-proposal/
Nearby WordPress Events – https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/04/14/nearby-wordpress-events/

Next meetings in 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/.

Team meeting on Monday, May 1 at 17:00 UTC in the Slack #accessibility channel.

#weekly-meetings