Tag Archives: accessibility-ready

joesimpsonjr 3:03 pm on April 5, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: April 5, 2024

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

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Gutenberg Working Group:

@annezazu shared this update from 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/ Working Group:

Joe commmented that the data views will need some attention, since they’re going to be important in the next gen admin.

Meta Working Group:

@joedolson reported that 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. is prepping the new 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 design, and he provided some feedback last week. But if anybody else wants to take a look, it’s been posted in #website-redesign and could use some time. All the issues he’s reported have already been handled.

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#accessibility-ready, #design

joesimpsonjr 4:05 am on April 1, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: March 15, 2024

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

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

General Working Group:

  • @joedolson shared that he’ll continue to work his way through the backlog of issues on tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.; mostly finished with tickets awaiting review, and aiming to get a lot done in 6.6.

Gutenberg Working Group:

@annezazu shared this update from 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/ Working Group:

  • Zoomed out view tracking issue has been edited to add more individual tasks and items. This is an area to pay attention to as work is beginning to revisit this option and how it interacts with things like patterns.
  • DataViews: Forms overview issue to discuss how to unify the various forms created like inspector panels or detail pages.
  • WIP: Advancing site editor index views issue that showcases follow up work to the data views for pages and templates.
  • WordPress 6.5 – Data Views accessibility audit issue to capture feedback coming from the 6.5 release of data views to help focus next steps for 6.6.

Joe commmented that the data views will need some attention, since they’re going to be important in the next gen admin.

Meta Working Group:

@Blake (Equalify) is working on a project to bulk assess the accessibility of .org properties.

Open Floor for Discussion:

  • Joe asked for everybody take time to look at WordPress 6.5. While major changes are out of scope at this point, if you find minor accessibility issues, those can still be fixed. Work on 6.6 is already started, so don’t hesitate to participate on issues milestoned for that, as well. 6.6 is intended as a polish and maintenance release, which is a great opportunity to focus on fixing issues instead of chasing features, so this is a very important release for our team.

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#accessibility-ready, #design, #website-redesign

joesimpsonjr 7:03 pm on February 16, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 16, 2024

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

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Documentaton Working Group:

General Working Group:

  • @joedolson shared that 6.5 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. is out and in testing, so please take a look! There are still some important bug fixes in hoping to get in.

Gutenberg Working Group:

@annezazu shared this update from 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/ Working Group:

Outside of the chaos and joy of 6.5, some quick items to note for you all:

Also want to flag up whether anyone is game to write a recap of accessibility improvements for 6.5.

Open Floor for Discussion:

  • Joe asked for more feedback on the Accessibility Vision Document;
  • @joesimpsonjr asks due to attending 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. Asia (in transit March 1), should we cancel our next regularly scheduled meeting?
  • Joe Jr also shared a message from @bethannon1: I’m reaching out to see if you think there might be interest in exploring the idea of having an accessibility-specific “happiness table” at WCUS – potentially alongside the more generic happiness table. Even if it was only for one morning or one afternoon, it might be a great way to raise awareness about accessibility. One morning or afternoon could be staffed by 4 to 6 people. One whole day might require 10 to 12 people. With my existing commitments around the event I don’t think I would be able to help staff it – but we could plan for Meg Miller from our team to help. Maybe there would be a handful of other folks from the accessibility team that might be interested?

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#accessibility-ready, #design, #website-redesign

joesimpsonjr 6:43 am on February 5, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 2, 2024

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

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

General Working Group:

  • @joedolson shared: #51870 is just pending second opinions. This removes a ton of placeholders and replaces them with real labels. Will hopefully be updated today.

Gutenberg Working Group:

@annezazu shared the following update for 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/ Team: 6.5 related updates:

  • Design draft shared for the highlight grid for 6.5.
  • Section Styling: this work has been punted due to some blockers in resolving CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. specificity questions.
  • Font Library: biggest work continues to be the Font Library: refactor REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. which was merged into Gutenberg following this merge criteria for this feature and had a quick PR to follow up on feedback. Outside of that, a discussion is underway around making the font library more discoverable.
  • Pattern overrides: there are some current questions around how this features ties to the 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. Renaming 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. and how the internal block ids are generated and used. Right now, we can find the block names through block ids, but we cannot do the same the other way around.
  • Data Views: a recap of what’s planned and stable for 6.5 has been shared along with a PR to add sync status by default for Patterns, matching the current experience.
  • Link Control: A bigger PR was merged for Implementing new UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. for invoking rich text Link UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. by requiring explicit activation before displaying the Link UI interface.
  • Block Bindings: the experimental flag was removed along with an outline of next steps for Gutenberg RCRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge., 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., and what’s out of scope for 6.5 (including when to backport). For out of scope, this includes a UI for users to add bindings. A ~4 min video walks you through the current status in trunk!

Outside of 6.5, an issue was opened for Media workflows around patterns that any media minded folks will find interesting.

  • @joedolson said he’s really looking forward to the new link UI. It’s a significant improvement. @jeryj added that the interactions and states feel so much more consistent and predictable.

@chaion07 also shared this for discussion:

  • The bug-scrub schedule for 6.5 release has been updated with the dates for the alpha phase. I’d really appreciate if we get this link shared during the meeting.

Media:

  • Joe reported that there’s a major planning meeting for strategizing the new media library on Thursday the 8th, so that’s the biggest thing coming up. Did get a minor fix shipped yesterday.

Themes:

  • Joe reported I have a new volunteer who wants to work on theme reviews & documentation; he’s going to touch base with @poena and @travel_girl to discuss.

  • @travel_girl shared the first draft for the testing guideline. https://wp-coworking.de/draft-cheat-sheet-testing-for-accessibility-ready-tag/

Open Floor for Discussion:

  • Joe is head down trying to finish some things before beta 1, which is coming up very soon now;
  • @joesimpsonjr asks if anyone is attending 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. Asia and 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/.?
  • Jeff Chi asked “Did someone answer to this request regarding the WordPress 6.5 release?”

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#accessibility-ready, #design, #website-redesign

joesimpsonjr 6:43 am on February 5, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Special Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: January 19, 2024

This was a special meeting to discuss items key to the group moving forward, including but not exclusively: Discuss new times for the bug scrub and weekly meetings but also an 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) Vision for WordPress.

Opening/Introduction by Joe Dolson

To start this off, I’d like to make a few comments. WordPress Accessibility has, for years, worked on a catch-up schedule. Fixing historic issues in the software, then scrambling to keep up with the pace of work in the 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. and site editor.

But we haven’t had a solid long-term vision of what we want to achieve.

That may sound very simple: we want the most accessible software we can achieve. However, having concrete goals needs more than some vague abstraction.

The primary purpose of having an accessibility team – as opposed to independent accessibility contributors – is to set an overall goal. The “team” part is about coordinating efforts and having some kind of consensus.

Having a vision is about documenting our mutual goal and the process for reaching it.

You can read the full transcript of all the thoughts and discussion points here.

#accessibility-ready, #design, #website-redesign

joesimpsonjr 9:58 am on January 8, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: January 5, 2024

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

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Design Working Group:

  • @joedolson shared: Probably the biggest design change in the last couple weeks is the launch of the new Developer Resources design: https://developer.wordpress.org. It could use a little accessibility attention, though it’s not super complicated, and there aren’t a lot of problems. Something I noticed right away is duplicate ‘View all’ links on https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/; those need to be differentiated, but mostly it just needs some people to go over it and check for things like that.

General Working Group:

  • @joedolson shared For general, it’s mostly about rebooting the bug scrubs; which is a topic for later in the meeting. The main goal in General in the next few weeks is to try and get some patches and testing done in preparation for 6.5; currently the 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. is expected on Feb. 13th, so it’s a very short amount of time left.

Gutenberg Working Group:

  • @annezazu shared the following update for 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/ Team: Update for you all, including the items for the broader CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. meeting. Feel free to take or leave :slightly_smiling_face:

FYIs:

  • High priority labeled items for the Gutenberg repo has been triaged with an open convo around whether to add the label to 6.5 priority items to help improve project organization and communication.
  • New overview issue: Pattern / Template Part Unification – the technical challenges.

6.5 related updates:

  • Data Views: check out an early prototype of inline editing to explore what will be needed for a future 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., add list layout to templates PR merged, align 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. implementations PR merged, new issue for show total count in menu item, and new issue for implement Kanban layout.
  • Font Library: add global configuration variables for font directory, which enables the option to set a custom directory as font directory. Interactivity API: check out on experiment with Comments 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.: client-side form submission. Design tools: early draft PR to add backgroundSize feature with implicit repeating backgrounds to add more functionality to the Group block’s background image support that was added in 6.4.
  • Command Palette: please share feedback around whether it would be helpful to enable the command palette feature everywhere in WordPress.
  • Navigation: Check out the latest prototype for being able to customize the navigation overlay with a template part, enabling a separate menu experience for mobile.
  • Performance: loads of recent performance improvements particularly from ellatrix (too many to link to) with more to come that should greatly improve both the post and site editor experience. Please share feedback as these fixes and enhancements land!
  • RevisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision.: the PR to integrate style book is close to landing and the PR to show change summary on selected item landed for GB 17.3.
  • Pattern overrides (new working name for the previous partial sync patterns): the UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. of the experience is being established and refined with the PR to edit source pattern in focus mode in post editor.
  • Work continues to align page editing features in Site and Post Editor with the latest update here.
  • 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. API: Backport updates from Core and HTML API: Add support for H1-H6 elements in the HTML Processor.

Accessibility additions:

  • [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)] Fix: Use spans instead of headings on dataviews table view page title
  • [a11y] Apply focus style to revision items
  • Reconsider the ‘Accessibility’ section in the Preferences modal dialog discussion.

Media:

  • Joe reported that the Media team is making plans to coordinate a meeting to discuss the media library redesign. Figuring out the timeframe and goals for that remain a top priority, since it’s going to make a big difference to how we approach existing issues. We’ve got a draft proposal to have a meeting, but no specific date yet.

Open Floor for Discussion:

  • For the next meeting:
  1. Talk about scheduling a special meeting for discussing the accessibility vision for WordPress; and
  2. Changing the bug scrub (possibly 10am CT on Tuesdays).

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#accessibility-ready, #design, #website-redesign

joesimpsonjr 9:44 pm on November 25, 2023
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: November 17, 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. My apologies for the delay and combined meeting notes. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Design Working Group:

  • @travel_girl shared: Destructive UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. is still on my bucket list but it will not happen this year. Documentation Working Group:
  • @joedolson shared this updated ahead of the meeting for comment: I’m working on some of the tasks for 6.5; currently in the customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. – and will be publishing the call for accessibility allies soon, probably tomorrow. He also mentioned and is trying to move a number of old tasks from “worked on but not finished” to “finished”. Gutenberg Working Group:
  • @annezazu shared this update for comment/discussion:

Hallway Hangout: Working session on consolidating various navigation modes happening on the 15th. Render Selected 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. Tools in HeaderHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. when using Top Toolbar was merged after two different proof of concept PRs. Alongside that above PR, the following PRs were merged to support it: Migrate keyboard-navigable-blocks e2e tests from puppeteer to playwright Escape on Block Toolbar returns focus to Editor Canvas Refactor Selected Block Tools Refactor Site Editor Document Tools Navigation to own component Refactor Edit Widgets Document Tools Navigation to own component Resizeable box (for resizing cover block) should use after block popover slot Only render block toolbar if blockType has value Move document tools motion to header-edit-mode layout level Move clientId key to BlockContextualToolbar In terms of upcoming work, here’s a recently opened issue: Be more specific when handling escape deselect from block editor. Data Views work continues with an overview issue here. This is a high impact area to be aware of with lots of work happening.

Meta:

  • Joe reported that 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. is still working on the website redesign; feedback is always welcome in #website-redesign

Open Floor for Discussion:

  • Joe Dolson broached discussion on the fututre of the bug scrub, summarized here:

Possible changes effective in January depending on approach decided on:

  1. Different time/date. The current scrub falls at the end of the European work day on Friday, which guarantees difficult participation for that region. Moving to an earlier time or different day may help;
  2. Encourage variable times. Instead of having a regular bug scrub led by one person, have different people do different times/dates;
  3. Do not have a regularly scheduled scrub. This does not mean we don’t scrub issues; it just means it isn’t a regularly scheduled plan; and
  4. Finally, we have a problem with engagement on accessibility tickets. How can we get people to take on tasks?

Proposed going to the 2nd and 4th weeks of the month, on the opposite schedule of the meeting, and moving to Tuesday at 14:00 UTC (to avoid conflicting with 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) Office Hours)?

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#accessibility-ready, #design

joesimpsonjr 2:00 pm on November 12, 2023
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: November 3, 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. My apologies for the delay and combined meeting notes. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Documentation:

  • Joe Dolson published the current progress page on Make that he mentioned last week. Also updated a couple of broken links in the handbook, reported by @afercia.

General:

  • @joedolson shared that WordPress 6.5 is about to release; the accessibility improvements doc is expected to publish very soon. Given such a short release, we accomplished quite a lot.
  • He’s focusing on trying to finish up a group of accessibility tasks the team started 5-7 years ago, mostly findable in track using the 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)-task keyword, all of which have had work done, but not finished.
  • Also, he’s considering discontinuing the bug scrub that precedes this meeting. Attendance and participation has been very low. What I need is for other people to step up and actually work on tickets; without that, the bug scrub is pointless.
  • Final thoughts: The accessibility bugs on coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. haven’t shifted much in the last few years. Same issues, just slowly working through them. There isn’t a lot to talk about there, they just need work. The accessibility issues 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/, on the other hand, are constantly changing at a rapid pace. We should probably focus any scrub time completely on Github. However, he would personally like to focus his time on polishing off the core issues. If somebody else would step up and run Github focused scrubs, Joe would participate. Because Joe’s following tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. so much, he’s not sufficiently on top of 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/ dev.

Gutenberg:

  • @annezazu shared this update: Anne was offline so she has nothing to report from the Gutenberg team so Themes is up next.
  • @travel_girl commented: On her ToDoList is currently the a11y ready tag for the themes. Especially the workflow, the concrete testing steps (aka onbaording) and that in the past not every theme got actually tested. But thats quite a big field and Anne thinks she’ll have to start with small steps for a good communication. Joe commented that the workflow needs improvement and he’s happy to help if @travel_girl has any specific needs.

Media

  • We’re working on scheduling a conversation to discuss plans for the phase 3 media library; that’s a primary focus right now. Trying to bring all the stakeholders together to have a productive conversation that can set some goals & at least a window into a time frame. Maja will draft out some to do list about themes. She was talking with Tammi at 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. Germany and got some good hints and ideas.

Meta:

Agenda Items and Open Floor for Discussion:

  • Joe Dolson asks if Establishing Accessibility Allies is ready for publishing and if there are any last comments. If ok, he proposes doing so shortly after 6.5 releases as a time to publish.
  • Discuss ways we can work on Requesting VPAT/ACR Documentation for WordPress – As a team, we would have to invest a lot of time in this. Without funding explicitly for this task, I’m not sure it’s something we can take on, but I think we should publish something about it – at the least, a “why we don’t have one, and what it would take to get one.” @elblakeo31 suggested pinging @chanthaboune on the VPAT/ACR talk. I don’t think there’s a legal need, yet. He did connect her with folks from the Office for Civil Rights who can help guide that discussion. Joe responded: The statement would be mostly about what is needed to prepare a VPAT. E.g., what decisions need to be made (e.g., what version would we prepare a VPAT for? How often would it be updated?). It would take more than one release cycle to get it done, so it would always be out of date; it’s just a decision how out of date is acceptable.
  • @elblakeo31 shared an update from our previous discussion on sponsoring a massive amount of WP accessibility work. Here are Blake’s full update details.

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: October 20, 2023

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Documentation:

  • Joe’s working on a document to publish on the Make site that gives an overview of accessibility focuses in the current release. The primary goal is to be a useful reference for contributor days or new contributors to know what the current priorities and status is. We have a page sort of like that already, under “Get Involved”, but this is intended to focus on the current release, rather than the overall picture. I’ll be re-writing the Get Involved pages, as well, so that those are a better representation. He also shared:
  • We’re now well into RCRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. phase for WordPress 6.4, so keep your eye out for any regressions or bugs in things added during 6.4, since that’s the only thing we can fix right now. *Today’s bug scrub focused on the early planning for 6.5, and trying to tackle some of the major accessibility tasks that have already been worked on, but may or may not be complete.
  • We have a number of large tracking tickets – reviewed in today’s bug scrub – that need some documentation work to identify whether or not we’ve actually finished that work. In most cases, we probably have not finished them, but the lift to finish is probably relatively small. The biggest challenge is finding the remaining instances.

Gutenberg

  • @annezazu wanted to flag this issue: Consistent handling of aria-describedby along with broader work continuing in the Data Views work with this recent PR DataViews: Add Grid Layout. Finally, since the Font Library was removed from 6.4, I hope we can use that as an opportunity to have it in top shape for 6.5. Please continue to help test and open issues there. Joe commented: One of the best things about punting something late is that we have something almost complete that can be thoroughly tested, which is a rare opportunity. So yes, do a lot of testing in the font library.

Media

  • Media is focusing on trying to highlight our long term goals that are poor candidates for the current media library but great candidates for the Phase 3 media library redesign.
  • We’re tracking those using the keyword phase-3-media-triage. We’re hoping that with a major redesign like this, we can use the opportunity to make some major under the hood changes that can solve a lot of problems.

Open Floor

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: October 6, 2023

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

General:

  • We’re heading in on the final 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. for WordPress 6.4. There are only 2 remaining accessibility issues to close; I’m hoping to finish those off this weekend. One of them is, as of yet, unreproduced, so it’s likely to be either punted or closed. If anybody can take the time to try and reproduce this, please do.
  • Joe also closed 14 core issues so far in 6.4.

Gutegerg:

  • @annezazu shared this update for the Gutenberg team: Specifically want to flag this upcoming more working group style hallway hangout. And I want to call out this PR: “This PR refactors how the 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. toolbar structure works to be more like a classic word editor where alt + f10 moves you to all of the block tools. An escape keypress would bring you back to where you were in the editor.”
  • Joe also discussed this in the bug scrub today, and it’s ready for serious testing now. It should look and work identically to the current implementation for sighted/mouse users, but introduces some new interaction models for keyboard/screen reader.
  • From @jeryj: “For keyboard interactions, Tab and Shift + Tab to navigate from block to toolbar have been removed. Now only alt+F10 to reach the toolbar and Escape to return to the block. The block tools should be within the HeaderHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. all times, allowing for Tab to navigate you between Document Tools, Save button, etc. I’m curious for feedback on the Escape keypress. I feel like it would be useful to be able to press Escape from anywhere in the header and return to your active block. Even from the 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. too. Just a global of “Return me to the block canvas focus,” but maybe that’s casting too wide of a net. Right now the Escape will only return you to the block if you’re on the block tools.” Jeryj mentioned that It can be tested by going to http://gutenberg.run/ and entering the PR#: 54513.

Media:

  • A few accessibility issues resolved in media, but it’s been mostly quiet. This is probably in part because of the unclear information about the future of the media library and how or when that might get integration with the editor. Most of the remaining media library accessibility issues are large, complicated problems that would be major investments in time and effort, so they are hard to prioritize with this outstanding ambiguity. So I’m likely to focus mostly on trying to establish media accessibility policies to help identify the paths we want to take forward. E.g., what in a media library will help to optimize our ability to support accessibility.

Themes:

  • @poena shared this update from the Themes team: I have made one accessibility-ready review of Twenty Twenty-Four and it does not pass the requirements yet. There are still problems with missing headings and missing landmarks. The theme style variations have problems with color contrast and needs further testing.
  • Open accessibility issues: Joe asked whether @poena opened issues following that review. Technically, theme style variations are not required to pass contrast, but it would be great if they did. And she added them as a comment on an existing issue.

Meta:

  • Joe shared that the redesign project is still ongoing, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything new in the last couple weeks. But they’ll pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” us as things are ready. The showcase filters could probably stand a re-review.

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, #website-redesign

joesimpsonjr 6:30 pm on September 22, 2023
Tags: accessibility-ready, ,   

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

joesimpsonjr 8:11 pm on July 17, 2023
Tags: accessibility-ready,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: July 7, 2023

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 here.

Updates from the working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

  • Gutenberg: @annezazu who provided this update for the Gutenberg working group: Passing on this post hot off the press: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/03/real-time-collaboration/ Otherwise, everything is all about 6.3! Trying to triage as much as possible to get issues into the 6.3 board (like this: * https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/52254 or this:https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/52253). Following the instructions for the Help Test WordPress 6.3 post will go a long way.
  • General: @joedolson shared the following updates for a couple of working groups: Joe committed or punted all tickets scheduled for 6.3 last week. Most remaining open issues are at risk, but punting to 6.4 isn’t the end of the world. On themes, I’ve got @Maja Benke connected to @kafleg to start her working on accessibility ready reviews

Open Floor

  • No updates to share at this time.

  • 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