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Re: WordPress accessibility

for

From: Howard Kramer
Date: May 17, 2012 10:10PM

Bevi, Paul,

Generally, I've found Wordpress to be accessible. As Paul mentions, it will
depend somewhat on the theme you choose. However, it's very easy to swap
themes in and out so testing a variety of themes is not difficult. I have
found that most themes have good semantic markup.

As might be obvious, you'll have more control over the site, including
accessibility, if you install Wordpress on a site instead of using the
wordpress.com platform where you don't have the option to install plugins
and do other direct coding and changes with the wordpress plugins and with
php programming.

I used Wordpress with the "thesis" theme to create an interactive site to
post and review proposals for our Accessing Higher Ground conference:
www.accessinghigherground.org. You're welcome to check it out. Let me know
if you have any specific technical questions.

-Howard

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Paul J. Adam < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi Bevi, I just did a presentation yesterday at #AccessU on WordPress
> Accessibility :)
>
> If you use the default Twenty Eleven theme it actually has really good
> accessibility out of the box, ARIA support, good use of the title
> attribute, skip links (though they don't work in Webkit), labeled form
> controls, use of headings. The hover menus don't work with a keyboard
> though.
>
> I did make a simple plugin to tweak the twenty eleven theme, fixing the
> skip for webkit, fixing color contrast, underline links in the body, and
> outline:0.
>
> The admin area however has many, many accessibility problems, lightboxes
> that don't receive keyboard focus when activated, many unlabeled form
> fields, features only working on mouse hover, menus can only be reordered
> with drag and drop mouse behavior, no skip link, duplication of menu links,
> the visual editor traps keyboard focus, outline:0, and the default behavior
> when uploading images is to make the title a required field and place the
> filename in the title which is really strange.
>
> Also did a basic admin plugin to add a webkit skiplink and fix outline:0.
>
> I had lots of fun working on it. Hope that you and other WebAIM followers
> like it :)
>
> http://mobilebility.com/blog/wordpress-accessibility-twenty-eleven-admin/
>
>
> Paul J. Adam
> Accessibility Evangelist
> Deque Systems
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> www.PaulJAdam.com
> @pauljadam on Twitter
>
> On May 17, 2012, at 1:59 PM, Bevi Chagnon wrote:
>
> > Any idea of where to find information on:
> >
> > 1) How accessible are most WordPress websites, and
> >
> > 2) Guidance on making WordPress websites accessible.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > - Bevi Chagnon
> >
> > --
> >
> > Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
> >
> > PubCom - Trainers, consultants, designers, and developers
> >
> > Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and Federal Section 508
> >
> > --
> >
> > * It's our 30th Year! *
> >
> >
> >
> > > > > > >
> > > >



--
Howard Kramer
AHG Conference Coordinator
Access Specialist
303-492-8672
fax: 492-5601
Disability Services
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