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Accessible Drupal themes

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From: Jan Heck
Date: May 24, 2013 6:35PM

I'm trying to help somebody put up an accessible site, and it appears
she's been convinced she needs to use Drupal. That may be overkill for the
site's needs, but that's a separate issue.

Every Drupal site I can find makes me nervous. What I've noted in a really
quick survey:
- They all seem to load a ton of JavaScript and CSS files.
- Everything is a div wrapped in a div wrapped in a div--very verbose and
weighty pages. Can someone tell me if this creates any accessibility
problems?
- They don't use any semantic coding that I've been able to find--it's
generally <div id="header"> instead of <header>, and no role attributes
either.
- Various keyboard navigation issues, e.g., no visual cues where you are
as you tab

I realize at least some of this is theme-dependent, but I have no idea how
much?

Can anyone tell me this: If somebody has created a really clean and
accessible template (not a Drupal theme, but just a page template or two),
is it possible to drop this into Drupal and just use Drupal as a CMS,
without all its fancy "stuff"?

I'd be appreciative if anyone can enlighten me about Drupal and
accessibility, at least some main points.

Thanks very much!
Jan