joesimpsonjr 1:32 pm on October 16, 2023
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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: October 20, 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, October 20, 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, October 20, 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, #agenda

joesimpsonjr 2:52 pm on October 6, 2023
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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: October 6, 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, October 6, 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, October 6, 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, #agenda

beccawidom 10:59 pm on September 22, 2023
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X-post: Openverse 2024 Planning: We Want Your Ideas!

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joesimpsonjr 6:30 pm on September 22, 2023
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Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: September 15, 2023

These are the bi-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 or see the full meeting schedule.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

General:

  • @joedolson shared that this team scrubbed all of the bugs slated for 6.4. There are a few that will definitely not make it, but 5 of the remaining 16 open tickets are almost ready to go; a couple others are still pretty viable. And there’s a need to test things!

Gutenberg:

  • @annezazu shared this update: Hallway hangout this week: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/21/hallway-hangout-improving-accessibility-in-the-site-editor/
  • Big convo around the use of inert and exploring alternatives: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/54369
  • Finally, there are two in progress features I want to flag for feedback: Patterns: add categories to user created patterns & Global Styles/Typography: Managing fonts. They are still in progress for 6.4 so great time to test and give feedback! There’s also this recent issue opened: Improve Link Control accessibility.

Media:

  • This team has mostly finished a couple of follow-ups to the admin editor redesign from 6.3, one committed, one pending testing.
  • There are two other issues that still might get completed in this cycle; as well as some ongoing work related to images in 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/.
  • 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.: Provided feedback on the filtering tools being built for the showcase, and there are a bunch of designs being shared in #website-redesign that could stand a look.
  • There are quite a few updates in #website-redesign; look at the posts from Nick Diego for a lot of links;
  • @Nick Diego mentioned that the updates to the Showcase are almost ready for an accessibility review. When it’s ready, he will be sure to reach out to the team.

Themes:

  • @poena shared this update from the Themes team:
  • In the theme Twenty Twenty-Four, there are still templates that have not been completed, so the theme is still not ready for full or final accessibility testing, but it moves very fast, so it might be ready at the time of the meeting. The lead devs mentioned that they will let the accessibility team know when it is ready for testing;
  • The heading levels should be mostly sorted. One template has two H1 headings which is not ideal;
  • The decorative asterisks which are announced by screen readers have not been replaced yet;
  • The footer links have been improved but requires a Gutenberg PR to be merged. Aside: WordPress 6.4 alpha and Gutenberg trunk is recommended for testing. @joedolson shared an open issue on the 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. component:
  • https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-mu-plugins/issues/419 Re: Themes update – While the theme is not ready for full accessibility testing, that doesn’t mean that there’s no room for feedback; just do any testing with the awareness that this is a project in active development. There’s already been quite a bit of accessibility feedback. If @poena can share the Gutenberg PR that needs to be merged, I’d be interested in seeing that.
  • @poena shared this follow-up link https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/54418

Open Floor

  1. @joedolson shared that open office hours start Wednesday, September 20th Please spread the word! https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/09/13/accessibility-office-hours/ The goal here is to help answer people’s questions about accessibility in general terms, disassociated from specific issues or tickets, so that the general understanding of accessibility in the community is raised.
  2. He’s also started a post about the accessibility liaison/allies plan that we discussed at the Community Summit. I’d appreciate some additional eyes on the post: https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/wp-admin/post.php?post=16274&action=edit. At the moment, I’m planning on letting people set up meetings with me to discuss their team needs – mostly because the logistics of doing that many group meetings would be difficult. However, if anybody wants to join me, I’m happy to invite others.

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.

#accessibility-ready, #design

Julia Golomb 8:52 pm on September 21, 2023
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X-post: Community Summit 2023: Your Role in What’s Next

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annezazu 8:10 pm on September 14, 2023
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X-post: Hallway Hangout: Let’s chat about improving accessibility in the Site Editor

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joesimpsonjr 6:20 pm on September 13, 2023
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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: September 15, 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, September 15, 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, September 15, 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, #agenda

Andrea Fercia 12:34 pm on September 13, 2023
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Accessibility Office Hours

In an effort to improve 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) knowledge in the WordPress project, the accessibility team will hold Office Hours every Wednesday at 14:00 UTC, starting on September 20th.

The purpose of this initiative is to provide a dedicated space and time to discuss accessibility principles and best practices.

When

The first accessibility office hours will be Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 14:00 UTC in the #accessibility Slack channel.

Why

It’s difficult to find opportunities to discuss general accessibility principles and best practices in depth. Accessibility team meetings mainly focus on issues that emerge during the release cycle and bug scrubs focus on specific TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets or 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/ issues.

The accessibility office hours is not a space to discuss specific issues. Instead, it’s meant to be a learning opportunity for everyone. It’s a space where everyone can help everyone improve their accessibility knowledge.

Though this is a meeting focused on accessibility, everyone is welcome, so please drop in and say hello if you have time! Feel free to contribute discussion points and leave them in the comments on this post.

Office hours as a 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. project

In the accessibility team there’s not much prior experience about the best way to hold this kind of meeting. This is an opportunity to get participants involved in setting the best way to structure these sessions. All are welcome to join and propose ways we can organize topics to prioritize them in the most efficient way.

All participants contribution will also be key to discuss whether and how to collect the outcome of the meetings discussions in a series of documented, shared, best practices.

What if I can’t make it?

Wednesdays at 14:00 UTC may not fit with everyone’s spare time or time zone. Depending on the requests and number of participants, the accessibility team is open to running a second office hours session on a different day and at a later time. Please do feel free to let us know what would work for you in the comments.

#a11y, #meeting

joesimpsonjr 2:59 pm on August 30, 2023
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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: September 1, 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, September 1, 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:

  • Discussion: adding Accessibility Checker to 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/

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, September 1, 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, #agenda

Amber Hinds 2:01 pm on August 28, 2023
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WCUS 2023 Contributor Day Summary

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 had 24 contributors working on various projects during the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US 2023 Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.. The session started with an orientation for new contributors on getting involved with the accessibility team as a developer or tester.

Amber Hinds (@alh0319) gave a demonstration of how to use keyboard navigation and VoiceOver for people who were not familiar with screen readers or accessibility testing. WordPress targets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (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/.) 2.1 AA conformance for WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., 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 Twenty X themes.

@joedolson and @alexstine led a table of developers and assisted them in getting setup with local environments so they can submit patches to core and Gutenberg. Three new contributors got set up with local environments for patching and testing.

Projects Worked On

After the onboarding, contributors worked on the following projects:

Testing Twenty Twenty-Four

Multiple people tested the new Twenty Twenty-Four theme. Issues were opened in the 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/ repo for Twenty Twenty-Four related to accessibility issues in the theme itself or 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. patterns included in the theme.

Testers included:

There is a Google sheet for tracking what has already been tested in Twenty Twenty-Four. The theme is not fully tested, and contributors are encouraged to continue testing and logging issues beyond contributor day. Please track what you have tested in the spreadsheet or reference it if you’re not sure what still needs to be tested.

When testing Twenty Twenty-Four @robpetrin noted that there are both block patterns created by the theme and core. If you want to disable the block patterns created by core to only test block patterns in the theme, Rob provided this code, which can be added to the functions.php file to disable core blocks.

add_action('init', function() {
	remove_theme_support('core-block-patterns');
});

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 Statement

Blake Bertuccelli-Booth (@elblakeo31) led a discussion about adding an accessibility statement to the footer of WordPress.org. There is not currently an accessibility statement for the WordPress.org website and contributors would like to see one added.

These are the steps identified to move forward with creating an accessibility statement:

  1. Domain discovery to determine what pages exist.
  2. Discussing WCAG Guidelines and what standards the WordPress website should strive for.
  3. Reviewing existing accessibility statements for similar projects or template sites (such as Drupal, UK examples, 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/.’s template, etc.)
  4. Testing web pages to identify existing issues or current accessibility status.
  5. Creating a draft statement in a Google Doc for the community to review.

Domantas Gudeliauskas. (@domantasgudeliauskas) created a spreadsheet of subdomains on WordPress.org and determined that there at 285,631 pages on WordPress.org, including subdomain sites, that might ned to be tested for accessibility problems.

There are several discussion threads in #accessibility for people who are interested in continuing this discussion and work.

Bug Scrub

Developers who worked on resolving existing accessibility tickets in TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. and GitHub include:

We got one new WordPress account set up, three developers set up with new local environments, and reviewed, researched, and patched several accessibility tickets.

Thank You

Thank you again to everyone who contributed during Contributor Day. We look forward to seeing everyone at a future Accessibility team meeting.

Thanks to @joedolson for reviewing this post.