Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: September 11, 2020

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 Slack channel and find the meeting’s agenda here.

Review the accessibility of the 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/ search 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.

To solve the Gutenberg issue to improve the customization of the search block, a first pull request to change some display options of the search block was merged. Unfortunately, the new implementation allows users to create search forms which are highly inaccessible. After some discussion, the Accessibility Team recommends the following:

  • every search form has to have a label, that can be visually hidden if the search form can be identified as such by other means;
  • every search form should have a submit button to identify it as such;
  • the default options for the search block should include:
    • a visible label,
    • a text button, and
    • no placeholder;
  • it’s worth doing an exploration about the possibility of throwing warnings in case a user reduces the accessibility of a search form.

Review the accessibility of new and existing sidebars in Gutenberg

In order to systematically address some problems regarding new and existing sidebars in Gutenberg, it was suggested that team members had a look at some related issues and pull requests before the meeting.

During the meeting, the discussion focused mainly on identifying why a 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. may not be the best pattern in some situations. It’s worth having a look at full discussion on Slack about sidebars accessibility, even if it’s quite technical; following are the main takeaways of the discussion.

  • Regarding the use of a sidebar to change the settings of a specific block: it’s important to keep a logical information architecture to give assistive technologyAssistive technology Assistive 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 users a consistent and reliable mechanism to move between the block and the sidebar.
    • The main concern is the lack of proximity (both in the DOM and visually) that can impact especially on users with disabilities (among others: people who rely on keyboard navigation, screen reader users, low-vision users who need text enlarging).
    • Relevant controls should be placed in a meaningful sequence (both visually and in the DOM); the DOM should not be changed to match a visual design that is not helpful.
  • Sidebars should have a global context; settings for a specific item in a collection (a block, a media item, a 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.…) should be inline with them.
  • Interface changes have a big impact on assistive technology users and, as such, should be carefully weighted. For example, the inserter component was changed from a popover with modal behaviour to a sidebar; this means that people used to interact in a certain way with the inserter had to re-learn how to use features they were used to.

#meeting-notes