Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
The primary guidance for web 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) on a global basis are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, commonly referred to as WCAGWCAG WCAG 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/..
Many countries use WCAG or equivalent accessibility standards for their government websites. Some countries also require compliance with these guidelines for commercial websites. Read which legislation applies to your work in Web Accessibility Laws & Policies by the W3CW3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.https://www.w3.org/. Web Accessibility Initiative.
WordPress accessibility coding standard
Code integrated into the WordPress ecosystem – including WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., 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/ websites, and official plugins, is expected to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.2, at level AA.
WordPress Accessibility Coding Standards.
The Accessibility Team also pushes to provide accessibility beyond that minimum whenever possible.
Theme accessibility standards
The accessibility standards for WordPress themes, submitted to the WordPress Theme repository, are available in the Theme Handbook.
The Theme accessibility standards are required for all themes submitted to the repository. These guidelines are maintained by the Themes team, not by the accessibility team. They are a subset of the guidelines for the accessibility-ready tag.
Accessibility-ready requirements for themes
The guidelines for the WordPress theme directory’s accessibility-ready program are documented in the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base. The accessibility-ready guidelines are additional to the theme guidelines.
Note: accessibility-ready does not mean a theme meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at level AA. It means that the theme reaches the minimum standards that the accessibility team has set in cooperation with the theme team.
Find accessibility-ready themes
In the Themes Directory on WordPress.org, select the ‘Accessibility Ready’ option in the Feature FilterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. to browse themes tested against the “Accessibility Ready” guidelines.
Do you want to get your theme listed as ‘Accessibility Ready’ in the Themes Repo? See the themes review handbook for more information.
WordPress plugin accessibility
There are no accessibility requirements for plugins in the WordPress 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. directory. This is because of the labor required to test plugins for accessibility. However, you are strongly encouraged to consider accessibility when creating or updating your plugins.
Creating a plugin that supports accessibility is mostly about setting healthy defaults. This includes:
- ensuring the menus are accessible from the keyboard,
- checking that default color contrast meets standards,
- that the HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. structure uses semantically correct code.
Extended information about web accessibility and how to test and to apply this for your work is documented in the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base.
2 responses to “Accessibility guidelines”
There are few grammar problems in the last sentence of the first full paragraph under “Levels of 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).”
Perhaps we should merge the last two sentences to read something like:
“Some countries require compliance with these guidelines for commercial websites, so the accessibility team uses these guidelines while improving WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..
Thank you for your help @lpbaird! I’ll get these edits made asap.