WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Accessible WordPress?

for

From: Mike Osborne - AccEase
Date: Mar 21, 2007 12:30PM

Thanks - very useful - and you've confirmed my suspicion that we should do
our own tailoring (theme customisation) for best control of accessibility.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jared Smith" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessible WordPress?


> On 3/20/07, Mike Osborne - AccEase wrote:
>> I'm looking to set up a blog using Word Press.
>> Any accessibility gotchas or key things I should look out for with this
>> blog software?
>
> Wordpress is quite accessible out of the box. We've been quite happy
> with it for our blog - http://webaim.org/blog/ If you're at least a
> bit comfortable with PHP, it's relatively easy to incorporate into
> your own site without the need for themes. This gives you the most
> control over the accessibility of it. In short, Wordpress itself is
> very accessible - it's the implementations of Wordpress in various
> themes and plugins that introduce accessibility issues.
>
> The admin interface does have a few issues. It can be fairly complex
> and the authoring toolbar isn't fully accessible. It also does not
> enforce accessibility (e.g., you can add images without alt text, use
> big text instead of headers, etc.).
>
> It sounds like you're doing the right things - you're concerned about
> accessibility, you're testing it, and you're seeking out ways to make
> it better. Fortunately, Wordpress makes it quite easy to maintain that
> accessibility.
>
> Jared Smith
> WebAIM.org
>