Tag Archives: accessibility-ready

@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:

Upcoming posts: the 6.6 roadmap draft is well underway with feedback and efforts being coordinated in #6-6-release-leads. It’s aimed for release by end of this week.
Phase 3: the remaining phase 3 related overview issues were created for folks to join Phase 3: Block Library, Phase 3: Workflows, Phase 3: Revisions, and Phase 3: Collaboration index.
Expanding style variations: Color & Typography Variations for WP 6.6 was created as another iteration issue for work planned for the next release. Included in this is efforts to move color presets into the palette view to better communicate what’s changing when selecting a different color palette from a style variation.
Data Views: various new issues and explorations are underway including allow users to adjust grid density, and consumers to set default density, add ability to display fields as a badge in grid layout, and a dedicated issue to [Extensibility](https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/61084] (plugin devs pay attention!).
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. bindings 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 support to all content image and button attributes in block bindings.
General experience: a few more general issues are worth paying attention to including improve global padding to be more consistent when inserting patterns in different ways, proposal: keep the Inserter open (meaning you have to close it out for it to close), and a recently found bug from 6.5 with a fix underway Can’t swap templates in the post editor.
Overrides in Synced Patterns: an idea has been shared for using the group block in synced patterns as a freeform content area (via pattern overrides). This helps work around the limitation that only certain blocks can have overrides and offer an open area for folks to customize.
Unify Site Editor details view with the Inspector view: questions and concerns came up after the duplicate post functionality was merged and can be viewed here Follow up questions on the duplicate post and page feature. Please add any on your mind to that issue so we can address collectively. Outside of that, a PR is underway to move around wordcount, post status and last edited info in page summary.
Zoomed out view: Add shuffling for header and footer template parts when zoomed out, matching current functionality with patterns.
Components: there’s a discussion underway to better document our deprecation procedures, along with a range of PRs for assessing whether certain components can be stabilized.
Design updates: various recent PRs have been merged to refine the Site Editor experience including, update list view spacing was merged to reduce the amount of scrolling required and adjust frame animation profile for the site editor.

Themes Working Group:

@poena shared this update from the Themes working group:

The focus style change in Twenty Twenty-Four was punted from the minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. 6.5.3. to 6.6 https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/60808

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.

joesimpsonjr 3:03 pm on April 5, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: April 5, 2024

Updates from the working groups

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

#accessibility-ready, #design

Read how some recent work provides more clarity in the Gutenberg repo with firmer boundaries around Overview, Tracking, and Iteration issues.
Overrides in synced pattern work continues with Pattern Overrides: No opt-out mechanism exists for named overrides and Pattern Overrides: Improve the UI clarity for using named overrides including discussions around how overrides should work.
Data Views work includes using the grid layout as the default for Templates and Template parts.
Early look at List View: visual feedback and keyboard behaviour tasks for WordPress 6.6.
Tracking and providing insights about consumption of global elements looks to pull together all of the various overlapping issues where one might want to see an overall look at where something is used, like a pattern.
Proposal: Reduce complexity of editing template parts from pages seeks to shift how editing pages in the Site Editor works, making it easier to edit headers/footers and harder to edit the template. Related to this is work around Clicking template when on page with two proposed changes.
Advancing contentOnly editing includes a four minute walk through video and an early look at how this editing can be improved. This is a very early design exploration so watch the video with that in mind.
Pattern shuffling continues to get more work with Limit pattern shuffling to theme and user patterns only.
Global Styles: Try color and typography presets in Site View means that you can use the color and typography from style variations in different combos! This helps with improvements to Styles panel in site editor overall.
Zoomed out view has a nice updated list of tasks including Consolidate BlockSelectionButton toolbar.

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.

joesimpsonjr 4:05 am on April 1, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: March 15, 2024

Updates from the working groups

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

@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.

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.

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.

joesimpsonjr 7:03 pm on February 16, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 16, 2024

Updates from the working groups

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

Documentaton Working Group:

@joedolson asked the team to comment on some proposed changes to the plugin directory design.

@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.

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

Check out this proposal for Core blocks in the directory. This is an important one to read through.
Want to flag this longstanding issue Citation field is only indicated by placeholder text and this PR that might just fix it Quote block: button for cite add/remove for review.
Escape as Select/Edit mode Toggle — recently merged PR for GB 17.7 (last to get in for 6.5).
Second layout prototype — draft PR looking to improve layout controls.

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

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.

joesimpsonjr 6:43 am on February 5, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 2, 2024

Updates from the working groups

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

@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.

@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/

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.

joesimpsonjr 6:43 am on February 5, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

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.

joesimpsonjr 9:58 am on January 8, 2024
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: January 5, 2024

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.

@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.

@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.

For the next meeting:

Talk about scheduling a special meeting for discussing the accessibility vision for WordPress; and
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.

joesimpsonjr 9:44 pm on November 25, 2023
Tags: accessibility-ready, design ( 14 ), website-redesign ( 11 )

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: November 17, 2023

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