joesimpsonjr 5:33 pm on February 22, 2022  

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 18, 2022

These are the notes for the Make WordPress 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 occurred Friday, February 18, 17:00 UTC. You can read the entire meeting 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 view the Meeting Agenda here. The meeting begins on time at the conclusion of the bug scrub, a welcome to new attendees with introductions, and rules for a family-friendly meeting.

Updates from working groups

  1. Report from General Team — @ryokuhi reported that all new tickets are being actively address as well as tickets milestoned for the next minor releases (5.9.1 and 5.9.2). The release date for the next WordPress 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. has been announced. The dates that interest us the most are:
  • Feature freeze on March, 29 (5 more bug-scrubs from now, with 10 tickets marked as enhancements and feature requests to be closed); and
  • 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 on April 12 (7 more bug-scrubs from now, with 15 tickets marked as bugs and blessed tasks to be closed).
  1. Report from Gutenberg Team — There has been testing (the 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. screen) with a few bugs found. @ryokuhi will comment on known issues and watch for new items as they are opened; and
  2. Report from Documentation Team — Hauwa stated that for for sections of the Team Handbook containing code blocks a review is needed. @joedolson will review when links are provided.

Open Floor

Our weekly meeting closed with these comments:

  • @estelaris is working on the redesign of the end-user documentation and wanted to follow up on an issue related to the hashtag used at the end of the headings. Comments After research he believes he has some good solutions but wanted to confirm with our team and hopes to post on Monday. Comments: Technical implementation is good and modeling on the WAI implementation would be fine. More comments promised if time permits; and
  • Discussion of a request for accessibility feedback on 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/ 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. by @getdave. His comment can be viewed on the weekly agenda. Kudos to @getdave for his approach on having this item considered — "let the Gutenberg contributors do their work, then when they are ready for feedback on specific topics."
  • @joedolson mentioned getting specific testing instructions is crucial mentioning @alexstine comment about block by block vs. overall systems testing. Without knowing the internal strutures of Gutenberg blocks, Joe’s practical approach is to test a block then leave it to others to figure out the best ways to resolve the issue. @ryokuhi believes the purpose of the issue is to have a single umbrella issue to keep track of all accessibility issues with the navigation block, referenced in the general issue to track progresses of the navigation blocks.
  • Reminder: some parts of the world will switch to Daylight Savings Time (DST) and we should consider revising our meeting times for next week’s meeting.