WordPress and Accessibility
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WordPress has some inherent accessibility limitations, especially with themes which are often not accessible and difficult to find. While WordPress itself has few issues, it only controls a small part of a site's presentation. The admin interface has improved accessibility but more work is needed. Finding truly accessible plugins also requires careful vetting as there is no quality control. Efforts are underway to develop accessible themes, highlight helpful resources, and add accessibility auditing to improve the situation overall.
WordPress and Accessibility
- 1. Accessibility with WordPress Limitations and benefits.
- 2. Who am I? - A web designer and WordPress developer - An advocate and consultant on web accessibility - A writer on practical accessibility - Read more at http://www.joedolson.com
- 3. Why WordPress? 1) WordPress is a free, open source CMS 2) WordPress has an enormous number of active users and developers. 3) Many of the accessibility limitations in WordPress can be easily overcome, with the right knowledge.
- 4. WordPress Accessibility: the problems
- 5. 3 Areas to examine: #1 The public side: WordPress for web site visitors - Inaccessible themes. - Inherent problems in WordPress.
- 6. Themes pose challenges - Almost all of the public experience of a WordPress site comes from the theme in use. - Most themes are not accessible. - Finding accessible themes is very, very difficult. - Building custom themes can be expensive. - Customizing existing themes is not necessarily cheaper.
- 7. Some fundamental problems. - Most of the base HTML and functionality generated by WordPress is great - A couple things don't quite meet specs: - Empty searches do not return an error - Default values for “more” links are not specific. - Tons of redundant title attributes - These are all fixable in themes
- 8. 3 Areas to examine: #2 The admin side: WordPress for web site editors - Dynamic editing. - Keyboard navigability. - Change management.
- 9. WordPress 3.5 was a big push: - Removes tabindex - Adds skiplinks - Fixes tabbing order in numerous contexts - Now possible to log out by keyboard - Numerous form fields now properly labeled - Keyboard navigation has clearly visible focus - Screen Options now much more easily found and used, giving better access to screen customizations and accessibility modes
- 10. 3 Areas to examine: #3 Using WordPress Plug-ins - WordPress plug-ins are all over the map - There is little to no quality checking in the plug-in repository. - Even if there was, checking for accessibility would be almost impossible to do. - Yikes.
- 11. What can you do?
- 12. Themes - Options for Accessible themes: • Visit http://wp-accessible.org/themes to locate reviewed accessible themes • Audited accessibility tag is coming to the WordPress theme repository – but it's not there yet. • Install and configure my plugin WP Accessibility: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-accessibility/
- 13. What can the WP-Accessibility plug-in do? • Remove redundant title attributes • Enable skip links with WebKit • Add skip links with user-defined targets. • Add language and text direction attributes • Remove the target attribute from links. • Force a search page error on an empty search • Remove tabindex from elements that are focusable. • Strip title attributes from images in content. • Add post titles to "read more" links. • Add an outline to the :focus state for focusable elements.
- 14. What can't this plug-in do? • Fix color contrast issues. • Correct forms to add labels or give meaningful errors. • Fix heading structures for screen reader navigation. • Give appropriate alt attributes to images • Correct for many other specialized circumstances...
- 15. Is that all? • For now, yes. There are undoubtedly other accessible WordPress themes around: but there is no easy way to find them. • Searching for accessible themes will find some, but you need to judge them critically. Self-labeling as accessible is a mixed bag. • WP Accessibility can fix some problems, but not all. • The Cities Project is working on building accessible WordPress themes: http://accessiblejoe.com/cities/
- 16. The Admin Side • Many of the problems currently in WordPress will be resolved soon – WordPress 3.5 is due out in December • It will probably release late; currently about three weeks behind schedule. • Not all accessibility issues will be fixed: submitting bugs is the only way to keep the pressure on. • http://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket • Or, email me at joe@joedolson.com – if I can reproduce your bug, I'll report it for you.
- 17. Using Plug-ins • There are over 20,000 plug-ins in the repository. You cannot assume that most of them are accessible. • Due to the nature of the WordPress.org plug-in search engine, most of the results for 'accessible' do not relate to accessibility. • Most plug-ins must be vetted independently.
- 18. What's the summary? • On the public side, WordPress makes very few mistakes, and these can be corrected by a theme or plug-in. BUT: WordPress only controls a small percentage of the presentation of a web site. • Currently available themes are generally lacking a focus on accessibility; and there isn't a good way to find accessible themes. • Extending WordPress via plug-ins is hazardous, and requires careful vetting. • The admin, though not perfect, is improving.
- 19. And what's coming up? • The Cities Project is developing accessible WordPress themes at http://www.accessiblejoe.com/cities/ • The WP Accessible project highlights plug-ins and themes that help accessibility at http://wp- accessible.com • The http://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/ is working to add an audited theme tag to the WordPress theme repository to help locate accessibility-ready themes. • There's momentum in the WordPress community to improve accessibility at all levels of the project.
- 20. Questions?