Accessibility Team Update: January 15, 2014

Testing 3.8 Admin Screens

The team discussed our current project, keyboard testing of 3.8 admin screens. There is now a new page on Make WordPress Accessible named Testing, and a sub-page under that named 3.8 Admin Screens Results. The testing page contains a list of 3.8 admin screens and a sample results table. The results page contains the report we are starting to build. We agreed on a testing methodology and the WCAGWCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. 2.0 AA success criteria we will reference. Testing is now underway.

Other Projects

  • During the meeting @jorbin notified us that #26602 is ready for testing after he applied a patch.
  • Also @davidakennedy is still committed to helping out the Widgets project and @grahamarmfield is going to have a look at the AH-O2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. 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 which is now on the repo.
  • At the same time we are checking the admin screens for keyboard 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) we will also be doing a separate report on all WCAG 2.0 AA issues on the P2 Theme we are using for this blog.

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: January 8, 2014

Workflow Redux

In 1982, in his Frank and Ernest comic strip, Bob Thaves wrote about Fred Astaire: “Sure he was great, but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards…and in high heels.”

Doing 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) dance is very much like that. Great care is taken to make sure that not only do we produce useful reports and code solutions but that whatever we create is as accessible as possible. For instance, last week we stated that when we produce word processing documents, they will be output as RTF, to preserve formatting between platforms. We also said we’d use Dropbox because it integrates so tightly with operating systems, giving our team access to files while using assistive technologyAssistive technology Assistive 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 in familiar ways. Using Dropbox as a staging area for documentation and automatically pushing finished work, including code solutions, to 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/ seemed like a good way to make our work public. The good is often the enemy of the best.

WordPress

This week we discussed this blog and how we can best integrate our workflow into the WordPress environment. Remember when Drupal set up a WordPress blog to publish info about Drupal? Perhaps we should explore our workflow options within our own ecosystem. This week we started working through the issues we face when contemplating using WordPress to publish our findings.

Tables

Mostly all of the accessibility assessments I’ve worked with, both manual and automatic, contain tables to display issues, reference to guidelines, solutions, etc. It might not be absolutely necessary to display this info in tables, but tables sure help to organize this type of tabular data. We just need to code accessible tables in WordPress. You can read how to properly code tables in Creating Accessible Tables by WebAIM.

TinyMCE and Tables

WordPress ships with a WYSIWYGWhat You See Is What You Get What You See Is What You Get. Most commonly used in relation to editors, where changes made in edit mode reflect exactly as they will translate to the published page. editor, TinyMCE. TinyMCE has a table tool. The TinyMCE site does have a page devoted to TinyMCE accessibility with one brief reference to tables. We’d have to test both the back end functionality and the output of that tool before we can say that it can be easily used with a keyboard and that it outputs accessible table code. If we need to, we’ll work with the 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. team to devise an accessible table feature for TinyMCE and it will benefit more than our project.

P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. Template

This page is produced using the P2 Theme. When it comes down to it, if we really want to make sure that our output is accessible, then we should check the P2 Theme for accessibility. This also will benefit more than our project alone.

Action Items

At the end of the meeting we summed up our next actions to work within WordPress to publish our accessibility findings accessibly, and to proceed with our focus on keyboard accessibility of admin pages:

  1. Check TinyMCE table tool function and output, work with the Meta team if needed
  2. Check P2 Theme for accessibility
  3. Proceed with keyboard functionality assessment of admin pages

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: January 1, 2014

Happy New Year to the entire WordPress community!

Accessible IRC Clients

Thanks to the team members who joined us today, and to @grahamarmfield who reported in while traveling. Just as we got underway we had a question on Twitter asking which IRC clients are accessible plus we found out later that one of our team members, @arush was sidelined when her IRC client “totally choked.” So after the meeting we used the LazyWeb technique and asked @WPAccessibility followers for some suggestions:

  • For Windows, Jennifer Sutton @jsutt suggests Instantbird
  • For Mac, @jsutt also recommends Adium
  • For Unix, Chris Nestrud @IAmChrisN recommends irssi

Much thanks to Jennifer, who is a big help to 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 and to the entire accessibility community, and also thanks to Chris Nestrud for the Unix suggestion. Chris says: “anything with a text 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. on Unix should work. I like irssi.” We can still use suggestions for accessible IRC clients for iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads., Android, and Windows Mobile.

Workflow

We are starting the process of auditing 3.8 for keyboard accessibility. Reports are generated in the process of accessibility auditing. We discussed how to handle those reports. A few meetings ago @ceo suggested that we create the reports in RTF format so the formatting is not lost in the platform shuffle and we will do that.

During today’s meeting we finalized plans to create a public 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/ repository where we will store the finished reports and other documents as we produce them. We will also create and update our assignments and to-do lists on Github.

We also finalized plans to create a Dropbox account for the team which we will use to store documents to be reviewed before they are finalized. Tom Harrigan made the suggestion that we set up a directory in Dropbox that will automatically sync from dropbox to github.

@davidakennedy has agreed to set up Github and Dropbox. Thanks David!

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: December 18, 2013

Focus on Keyboard 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)

The accessibility team met today to discuss a new initiative:

  • We will conduct an audit of keyboard accessibility and make those findings available to everyone
  • We will reach out to other teams to disseminate this information
  • Our short term goal is to add keyboard accessibility to everyone’s toolkit
  • Our long term goal is to institutionalize accessibility.

Support Requests

Two projects have asked for help from the accessibility team:

  • Widget Improvements: @davidakennedy has volunteered to provide support
  • AH-O2: @trishasalas is already providing support

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: December 4, 2013

Discussion about Analysis of what gets into the alt and title attributes when adding an image into a page/post by @grahamarmfield. Excellent work.

Discussion about what is needed to move Create new tag: accessible-ready @sams suggested that we should find an owner and get it in as soon as 3.9 development opens. He also suggested that we look at the patch in #21442 to see what’s needed.

Though we have had some new recruits to the team in the last week, we are still woefully understaffed compared to the speed, breadth, and depth of WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development. We will continue to contribute where we can and are looking for more team members with deeper coding skills to help move some of the issues along.

#accessibility, #accessible-ready, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: November 20, 2013

The time of the weekly Wednesday 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 is now 20:00 UTC.

A ticket to create the accessible-ready tag for the theme check process has been posted.

The accessibility statement is added to the Codex Accessibility page.

We discussed reviewing and re-writing the Codex Accessibility page.

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: October 23, 2013

Thanks to @grahamarmfield for the new welcome message on Make WordPress Accessible and for the new page Get Involved with the Make WordPress Accessible Team.

We have draft theme check Accessibility Guidelines and need a tag to attach to themes that make it through the voluntary process to be approved as accessible themes. We decided to do some user research to determine which terms people use when searching. We will use that info to inform our choice of tags.

In order to help do that research the team decided to start a Facebook page to hopefully reach people we are not reaching now with this blog, our @WPAccessibility account, and our LinkedIn WordPress Accessibility Group. We will also reach out to our local WordPress MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. groups to help us do the tag research. Finally, we have asked @samuelsidler to find out if there are stats for theme search that we can use to further refine our selection of a tag or tags.

We will also review content inventory on this blog and pages and give some love to our Accessibility Codex page.

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: October 9, 2013

We discussed accessibility progress made by @grahamarmfield, @rianrietveld, Bram Duvigneau and others at WordCamp Europe. Rian wrote something about it: http://blog.rrwd.nl/2013/10/09/wordcamp-europe-2013-lessons-learned/

@joedolson and @sabreuse continue to help with the Twenty Fourteen theme.

We discussed communications channels: Twitter account @WPAccessibility, Make WordPress Accessible for public discussions of the group, an email list for prep work, the WordPress Accessible LinkedIn group for public discussions for everyone, and IRC discussions for working meetings. Also discussed was the possibility of creating a Facebook page which the group decided against doing.

@rianrietveld and @atimmer discussed setting up a testing environment and will continue that discussion offline.

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: October 2, 2013

The team discussed active tickets including https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/25054 3.8, sabreuse->(no owner), new, Twenty Fourteen Accessibility fixes.

A list of accessibility tickets: http://bit.ly/1glL1bH

A team member has set up 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) test server pulling the updates for team use.

#accessibility, #team-reps, #weekly-updates

Accessibility Team Update: September 25

Most of the time was spent discussing https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21334 3.7, grahamarmfield->helen, closed, Row actions are not always keyboard accessible. Helen Hou joined us for the discussion.

1. When mouse hovers over a page/post row in main Pages/Posts screen ‘quick links’ appear. Suggesting that they also are made available for keyboard-only users and screen reader users.

2. When using the QuickEdit panel the time/date controls have separate tabindex and no labels. Suggesting that the tabindex be removed from those controls, and that labels be used.

Discussion centered around the need to reduce verbosity for screen reader users, while still making the controls available to them.

It was decided to test the latest build and come back with a recommendation.

#accessibility, #meeting-notes, #team-reps