The AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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 shares their expertise to improve the accessibility of WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and resources.
MigrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. of the AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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 Handbook.
We are moving the maintenance of the Accessibility Team Handbook over to GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ in the repo WordPress/accessibility-team-handbook, @coffee2code is helping. The reason for the migration is that more people can contribute to the content of the handbook when it’s on GitHub.
Phase 1: finish the content of the Knowledge Base, we hope to achieve this soon.
Phase 2: Sync the content in the Knowledge Base with a new section in developer.wordpress.org called accessibility.
Phase 3: Read through the accessibility information on wordpress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ and decide if content needs to be updated or point to Knowledge Base on developer.wordpress.org. We want to keep one source of truth to avoid duplication and outdated info.
Phase 4: Maintenance. WordPress, web techniques, and accessibility change, we want to keep the documentation up-to-date.
an explanation of the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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)-ready program,
Cross-linked all the resources with the accessibility-ready requirements, and we made the setup of the resources uniform. Now the testers can quickly find related documentation in the Knowledge Base.
And we now have a Sitemap for users, with links to all the documentation and topics in the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base.
Plans for September 2026
Move the Accessibility Team Handbook to a GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository on the WordPress GitHub organisation.
And we will add to the topic Infinite scroll, the ways to disable this in the Media Library grid view for WP 7.1. In short, there are 2 ways:
In your user profile (Users > Profile > Your name), check the option “Disable infinite scrolling in the Media Library grid view”. Then, a message “Load more” appears in the Medial Library grid view to manually load more images.
Or view the images in “list view” instead of “grid view”. The list view option has pagination.
At WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Europe Torino ’24, Joe Dolson asked Rian Rietveld to review the documentation about accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) on the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ website. What she found was that the information was hard to find, scattered all around the place, with duplicated and incomplete information.
At WordCamp Basel ’25, we worked out a plan to improve the documentation for WordPress’ accessibility.
Last year we centralized, reviewed and updated this documentation, creating one source of truth: The WP Accessibility Knowledge Base on wpaccessibility.org.
The goal is for WordPress community to have consistant, easy to find, reliable, and up-to-date information about what is important to create sites, blocks, themes, admin functions, or plugins everyone can use.
The Accessibility Team Handbook on WordPress.org now only contains information about the accessibility team, the WordPress accessibility coding standard and about how to contribute.
The advantage of updating everything is that you get new insights. Instead of 7 working groups, the team now has 3 focus groups: The accessibility of WordPress, The accessibility-ready program and Documentation and education. With each group its own contact person.
Theme accessibility-ready guidelines
Amber Hinds and Joe Dolson updated the theme accessibility-ready guidelines. These new requirements aare now published in the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base.
WP Accessibility Knowledge Base
All information about accessibility itself, originally in the handbook, has been moved to the WP Accessibility Knowledge Baseon wpaccessibility.org. The content is written in markdown and lives on the GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ pages of the repository wp-a11y-docs, owned by the accessibility team. Many people helped getting this documentation out there, thank you!
The WP Accessibility Knowledge Base now contains info about:
Start with accessibility, with an introduction to WCAGWCAGWCAG 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/., 7 quick wins, the business case, how to get training and eduction and also our opinion about overlays.
Accessibility-ready program, with the theme requirements, testing process and how to find accessibility-ready themes.
Standards and best practice, for content & images, design & user experience, frontend code, web forms, legislation and how to document accessibility.
Test for accessibility, about automated testing, checks for content, design and frontend, WordPress plugins for accessibility testing, how to test with a keyboard and with a screen reader and links to complete WCAG checklists.
WordPress and Accessibility, about WordPress, WCAG and compliance, links to the accessibility team and team handbook and an overview of plugins that help support accessibility.
We are still in the process of updating and extending the content, but much of it is done or almost done.
Work in process
The Accessibility Handbook will move to a GitHub repository on the WordPress organisation later this year.
When all the documentation in the Knowledge Base has been reviewed and updated, the relevant documentation will be copied to a new section called “Accessibility” on developer.wordpress.org. So, in fact, we return the updated info to wordpress.org, where it belongs and also will be easier to find.
After this, all the old documentation about accessibility on make.wordpress.org needs to be updated to point to this new accessibility section.
Proper documentation is an ongoing job, we need to keep updating, reviewing and extending. The web, WordPress itself, support for HTMLHTMLHTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites., CSSCSSCSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. and ARIA, assistive technologyAssistive technologyAssistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology, the way people use the web, the use of AI, it all changes. It’s a work in progess.
How can you help
Read what’s there, on wpaccessibility.org, and give us feedback. We are writing this for you, please let us know if you can understand and use it.
WordCamps are the best. Last WordCamp Europe, at the contributor dayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/, a table full of people reviewed the Knowledge Base and came back with useful feedback. When you are at a WordCamp contributor day, please join the accessibility table to give feedback on wpaccessibility.org.
Request content. Do you need information about a specific topic? Are there discussions on how to handle a specific topic or component? Ask us for help and documentation, resources, or what else you need. Open an issue in the wp-a11y-docs GitHub repository with your request or pingPingThe 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.”@rianrietveld in WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
Are you a coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developer? Help us with examples, or point us to good examples to add to the docs.
WordPress agencies: consider sponsoring Joe and Rian. Or give your developers, designers or content creators time to work on the documentation.
But most off all: you can help us by using the documentation for your work, let’s make WordPress usable for everyone.
With: the feedback we received on the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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)-ready requirements and the knowledge base during Contributor dayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ at WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Europe, as well as the work we did to process that feedback.
During the contributor day of WordCamp Europe, people at one table tested themes for the accessibility-ready tag. This gave us an excellent opportunity to see if the knowledge base works. We got useful feedback and the rest of the month we worked on processing this.
All the documentation for the accessibility-ready tag is now renamed Accessibility-ready program and is placed under one main menu item. Now the information is easier to discover and it gives us room to add more related documentation to this section. Some URLs have changed, we tried to catch all links but if you discover a still broken URLURLA specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org, please let us know.
Important feedback was: We need to enhance accessibility-ready guidelines with classic vs. blockBlockBlock 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. theme information and examples how to achieve the guidelines. More info about this in [issue #332].
The “Last updated” date now works thanks to @joedolson. So for example on Using headings in the content, the Last updated: May 22, 2026, at the bottom of the content with the metaMetaMeta 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. data, is now correct.
Rian hopes to update and finish the documentation about how to test for accessibility in July.
the updated accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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)-ready requirements for themes,
work in progress on the documentation,
our plans for the contributor dayContributor DayContributor 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://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ at WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Europe.
The new accessibility-ready requirements for themes
The main work in May on wpaccessibility.org was adding and updating the new accessibility-ready requirements for themes, by Amber Hinds (@alh0319) and Joe Dolson (@joedolson):
Rian Rietveld is working on cross linking the topics in Standards and Best practices with the new accessibility-ready guidelines, and making way of adding resources uniform cross the site.
Annelies Verhelst (@anneliesjenl) wrote an update of the page about accessibility legislation worldwide, in Standards and best practice. So much has changed the last few years. This update is currently in review.
Anne-Mieke Bovelett (@annebovelett) is working on updating and extending pages about the Accessibility for your business, in Start with Accessibility.
WordCamp Europe contibutor day
In preparation for WordCamp Europe, Rian makes an inventory of the accessibility info on wordpress.orgWordPress.orgThe 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/ and its sub sites. She plans to talk to the docs and metaMetaMeta 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. team about how to make the info about accessibility available in a workable way while avoiding duplicate content.
Also, we want your opinion about the info on wpaccessibility.org and perform user testing on the site. So hop by the accessibility table if you want to test or discuss the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base.
New and updated documentation: about alternative text for images, headings and links plus an introduction to WCAGWCAGWCAG 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/.. Featured content: Styling links.
Work in progress: documentation about how to test for accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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), update of the info about the accessibility-ready tag in the themes handbook and figure out a section “Can I use”.
New and updated content, added in April 2026:
Getting started:
Introduction to WCAG. Annelies Verhelst (@anneliesjenl ) wrote an explanation about what the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are and how they relate to WordPress.
In May ’26 we want to update the information in the Themes handbook about the accessibility-ready tag. We updated the guidelines and the current info on Themes handbook about accessibility is outdated.
We are also discussing if and how to set up a “Can I Use” section for coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks. With the status per blockBlockBlock 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. about its accessibility. All input is appreciated, we want to set something up that is not a ton of work, but is findable and informative for users. This may be a good topic to work on at WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Europe ’26.
All feedback on the documentation is very much welcome.
new and updated documentation on wpaccessibility.org;
work in progress.
New and updated documentation on wpaccessibility.org
Quick wins to improve the accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) of your website.
The Reading guide, vistors now can find content by role or expertise instead of by topic only.
A Disclaimer, in short: This documentation is intended to help the WordPress community understand and implement accessible practices. It is not a replacement for the official Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
We will wait with transferring the current Accessibility Team Handbook to GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ until later, we need to explain and discuss this in more detail with the MetaMetaMeta 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. team. Maybe WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Europe will be a good opportunity for this.
Work in progress
We are discussing if and how to set up a “Can I Use” section for coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks (GitHub issue 294). With the status per core blockBlockBlock 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. about its accessibility. All input is appreciated.
Documentation we are working on to improve at the moment:
Alt text for images in the content and in theme development.
Headings in the content and in theme development.
Introduction to WCAGWCAGWCAG 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/..
Accessibility for your business.
Legislation.
All feedback on the documentation is very much welcome.
The way of navigating the content is now less depending on the main menu. For a better user experience, also for mobile views.
We added the Reading guide, vistors now can find content by role or expertise instead of by topic only.
Changes in the current team handbook
The Accessibility Team Handbook now only addresses the info about the AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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 itself and for the accessibility documentation we now point to the Standards and best practices in the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base. Since redirects for popular pages are not possible, some subpages will be left in place to guide users to the updated content.
Plans for March ’26
Finish the documentation about Focus management, in the sections Frontend code and Web forms.
Start with updating and extending the documentation for the section Content and images.
Transfer the Accessibility team handbook to GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/.
WCAGWCAGWCAG 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/.-EM audit on the website;
plans for February.
New documentation
Amber Hinds and Joe Dolson wrote and published documentation for the new accessibility-ready tag guidelines for WordPress themes:
From user testing by Dutch frontent developers, we got ideas for a better organisation of the content structure. We are working on less items in the main menu and better in-page navigation to related content. That way content is better findable and can be found in multiple ways, not only by the search option or the main menu.
WCAG-EM audit
The website wpaccessibility.org got an official WCAG-EM audit, the site passes the audit for WCAG 2.2 AA compliance. We created an accessibility statement for the website.
Work for February ’26
Finish the reorganisation content
Add a reading guide
Finish all documentation about forms, next is “Focus management in forms”.
Rian will give a presentation about the WP A11yAccessibilityAccessibility (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) Docs project at WPLDN in London on February 26.
All feedback on the documentation is very much welcome.
new design and a better search option wpaccessibility.org;
contributors feedback on WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Netherlands;
new and updated documentation;
accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) audit on the website.
New design and a better search option wpaccessibility.org
He created also a Wapuu for the project. Meet the WPA11yPuu!
@joedolson improved the search: there is an actual search result page now, instead of only a autocomplete dropdown. Rian implemented the design just before WordCamp Netherlands.
Contributors feedback on WordCamp Netherlands
At WCNL Rian gave a presentation about the project and there were two contributor sessions. The main takeaway was that we also need a more prominent section about why we need accessibility. To have documentation to share with clients, team members or, for example, stackholders that do not see the point.
In the first week of December, Florian Schroiff (@floll) from Level Level will perform a WCAG-EM accessibility audit on the website, including the new design and the updated search option. We will fix what he found in December, because we want to practice what we preach.
Plans for December 2025
Continue to write the documentation.
Make sure wpaccessibility.org is WCAGWCAGWCAG 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/. 2.2 AA accessible.
