Got Themes?

Joseph Karr O'Connor

Accessibility Consulting

Special thanks to Jennifer Sutton @jsutt for keeping the faith, and the details.

Thanks to Joe Dolson @joedolson for his contribution to this presentation.

The Challenge

WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool based on PHP and MySQL first released on May 27, 2003. WordPress version 3.4 has been downloaded over 21 million times.

1. The back-end of WordPress is not ATAG 2.0 compliant.
2. There is no accessibility compliance checking process for themes.
3. There is a spectacular lack of accessibile themes.

1. Back-End

• The back-end of WordPress is not compliant with Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0

"This specification provides guidelines for designing web content authoring tools that are both (1) more accessible to authors with disabilities and (2) designed to enable, support, and promote the production of more accessible web content by all authors." W3C

1. Back-End

Joe Dolson: There are 3 essential issues at play in terms of getting the work done, not including the actual time required to do the work.

1. What constitutes maximum accessibility?
2. Getting changes completed and approved.
3. Keeping the work accessible from version to version.

1. Back-End

• What constitutes maximum accessibility?
• Getting changes completed and approved.

"The core team are highly qualified people and have excellent intentions: but if the accessibility community can't agree on a path, then the core team tends to make no action, because they don't have the expertise to make a decision without guidance. Graham Armfield @coolfields has done a great job of checking in on all the various outstanding issues recently and getting conversations moving." Joe Dolson

1. Back-End

• Keeping the work accessible from version to version.

"Finally, any accessibility changes will require ongoing commitment — it can't be the case that somebody gets a change made then walks away — anybody who's going to be truly dedicated to making positive change in the ecosystem will need to be present all the time." Joe Dolson

2. Compliance

2. There is no theme accessibility compliance checking process.

Get involved!

• Create an account on WordPress.org.
• Interests: Working on optional accessibility compliance checking for new themes.

Thanks to esmi and Joe Dolson for co-writing it, there is now a draft process for an optional accessible theme compliance check.

3. Themes

• Accessible WordPress themes are in short supply.
• Fewer than one percent of themes are accessible.
• Use caution when searching for themes in the wild.

3. Themes

Searching for themes on the wordpress.org themes directory with the keywords: accessibility, WCAG, and 508 returns four themes, less than one percent of the 1,614 themes. NB: other terms yield no results.

• Redline
• Arjuna X
• Scrapbook
• Blaskan

3. Themes

Using the wordpress.org theme directory to search for themes provides peace of mind because the themes have gone through a review process. Simply searching for free WordPress themes in the wild may yield unexpected results.

• Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes by Siobhan McKeown

3. Themes

• Theme authors make their own claims about accessibility.
• Language about accessibility varies greatly.
• That's why we need a voluntary compliance check.

Theme Accessibility Audit: Draft Proposal
Make WordPress Accessible
Supporting Everything WordPress: Accessibility

Cities

Cities

Cities

The Meetup group I started, the Los Angeles Accessibility and Inclusive Design Group, will gather with other Los Angeles Meetups to form a team of people who will produce an accessible WordPress theme.

• Cities groups will form teams.
• Cities groups will work in a sprint process.
• Cities groups will document their process.
• Cities groups will post code to public repositories.

#Winning

1. Accessibility issues in WordPress 3.5 are being addressed.
2. A voluntary accessibility compliance checking process is proposed.
3. Cities themes will be made available free through wordpress.org.