WordPress is increasing in popularity within the world as a content management tool for producing and maintaining all kinds of websites - not just blogs. But is it possible to create accessible websites using WordPress. This presentation looks at the meaning of web accessibility, why it's important, and what factors can influence accessibility within the WordPress framework. I also cover how things are changing for the better within future releases of WordPress.

1. WordPress and Web Accessibility
Graham Armfield
www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

2. WordPress and Web Accessibility
Please shout or otherwise indicate
if you can’t hear me.
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

3. WordPress and Web Accessibility
Graham Armfield
Who am I?
• WordPress developer and user
• Accessibility consultant
• Accessibility tester
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

4. What this presentation will cover
• The rising popularity of WordPress
• Using WordPress to build accessible sites
• Accessibility of the WordPress admin screens
• The future
• Resources
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

5. Some initial questions
1. Who has heard of WordPress?
2. Who uses WordPress or is thinking of using
WordPress to maintain their own or their
company’s website?
3. Any web developers in the audience?
4. Anyone developing in WordPress?
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

6. Some initial questions
5. Who has heard of web accessibility?
6. Who knows what it means?
7. Who hasn’t put their hand up yet?
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Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

7. So what is web accessibility?
One definition:
“Enabling the web so that everyone can access
its content when they want to and how they
need to”
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

8. Why web accessibility is important
The web is increasingly the world’s preferred
channel for:
• Knowledge
• Social interaction
• Commerce
But it’s not always easy for:
• Those with disabilities
• Those who are getting older
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

9. Why do web accessibility?
• Accessibility can increase the profitability of
a website
• Accessibility is a legal requirement
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Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

10. Accessibility Myths - 1
It’s just for a minority of people…
• 12 million people in UK have a recognised disability
• In the UK 15 million are over 55 – 12 million over 65
• Allowing for overlap between those with disability
and those over 65 there could be as many as 16.5
million people in UK who could benefit from good
accessibility in websites
• 71% of people with disabilities have invisible
disabilities – such as a learning or cognitive disability
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

11. Accessibility Myths - 2
Accessibility is all about blind people…
• 2.6 million have difficulties using their hands which could
impact their use of keyboard and/or mouse
• 2.2 million people have difficulty with memory,
concentration or learning, of which about 1 million have a
learning difficulty
• About 2 million people have a hearing impairment, of
which 50,000 use British Sign Language to communicate
• About 2 million people are dyslexic
• 1.8 million people have a vision impairment, of which
180,000 are registered blind
• 1 in 12 men have colourblindness
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

12. Accessibility Myths - 3
Yes, but my site is not meant for the
blind/deaf/motor impaired* (Delete as appropriate)
• People don’t always browse/buy just for themselves
• You can’t make assumptions about people
• Think about your site’s reputation amongst friends
and family of PWD
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

13. Accessibility Myths - 4
It’s too expensive – not enough ROI
• PWD represent a market worth £80bn per year in the
UK – approx £320bn across EU
• Friends and family can add significantly to that
• 83% of disabled people will not return to a business
that does not meet their access needs.
• Studies in US show that friends and family of PWD will
also avoid inaccessible sites
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

14. Accessibility can increase profit
It makes financial sense
• Tesco – In 2001 an accessible version of their shopping
site was launched at a cost £35k and yielded £13m
turnover a year
• If a company’s website is hard to use, people will
visit a competitor’s site which is easier to use.
• Why shut out revenue?
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

15. Accessibility Myths - 5
If I ignore it, it’ll go away
• We are all getting older
• One in four will be over 65 by 2061
• How accessible do you want the web to be in
20/30/40 years time?
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

16. Accessibility Myths - 6
No-one ever gets sued anyway
• A number of actions started against companies but
many settled ‘out of court’ with confidentiality
clauses attached.
• In 2012 RNIB started an action publicly against BMI
Baby. It was impossible to book flights and reserve
seats on their website without using a mouse.
» The case has now been settled as BMI Baby have
agreed to make changes.
» RNIB have indicated that they are looking at two
more actions in the near future.
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

17. The rising popularity of WordPress
Latest figures point out…
• Over half of all sites that use a CMS
(content management system) use
WordPress
• Used for nearly 15% of websites
overall – approx 70 million sites altogether
• WordPress is used in 22 of every 100 new websites
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

18. The rising popularity of WordPress
• Originally WordPress was just a blogging tool – now
can be used for almost any type of website
• Easy to use, easy to develop for
• WordPress is now powering some larger and high
profile sites
• http://www.number10.gov.uk
• http://www.demconvention.com/
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

19. Can WordPress sites be accessible?
To answer that question we need to look at the
3 key components of a WordPress website
1. The WordPress theme chosen
2. Any plugins and widgets used
3. The actual content of the site
To be accessible a WordPress website must get
all three of these components right
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Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

20. WordPress Themes
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Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

21. But how do you know if themes and
plugins are accessible?
• Good question – it’s hard to tell
• Some themes/plugins state accessibility
when actually there are some key failings
• There is a real scarcity of accessible themes
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

22. WordPress and Accessibility
Good news:
• WordPress core is generally very good at supporting
web accessibility
• Default themes are not too bad – and getting better
• It is possible to create a WordPress website that is
very accessible
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

23. WordPress and Accessibility
Bad news - 1:
• Most WordPress themes contain some
elements that compromise accessibility:
• Keyboard operability, visible focus
• Poor colour contrast
• Page structures
• Headings
• Etc
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

24. WordPress and accessibility
Bad news - 2:
• Some WordPress plugins introduce markup and
functionality that is not accessible:
• Contact form plugins
• Lightbox, gallery and carousel plugins
• Social bookmarking plugins – eg Addthis
• Etc
• The WordPress admin screens have some inaccessible
features
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

25. A developer is building me a theme
or website – what should I ask
him/her?
• Do they know what accessibility is?
• Do they build accessible websites? – ask for
examples
• How do they test for accessibility?
My advice - Ask for WCAG2.0 level AA – a good
pragmatic standard
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

26. But will it cost more?
• Developers who are familiar with accessibility shouldn’t
charge significantly more for a normal website build –
they’ll possibly be doing it anyway
• However testing for accessibility can be more time
consuming so that may cost a bit more.
• End user testing can be more expensive still, but is an
extremely revealing form of testing.
• If you have videos it will be necessary to caption them
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

27. Implementing accessibility
• Accessibility is a lot harder and more expensive to
retrofit.
• It needs to be designed in from the start
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

28. Simple things we can all do - 1
Images – correct use of
alternate text (alt
attribute)
• Describe what image shows
or what it represents
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

29. Simple things we can all do - 2
Links
• Ensure that destination is
clear from the link:
My blog post: Read more
rather than
My blog post: Read more
• If link opens new tab or
window inform the user
Links list from JAWS screen
reader
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

30. Simple things we can all do - 3
Use headings properly
• Signpost content
• Often used as navigation
mechanism by screen
reader users
Headings list from JAWS screen
reader
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

31. Accessibility and the WordPress
admin area
So far we’ve covered creating websites that
are outwardly accessible…
Q. But what about the back end?
A. Not so good…
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

32. Accessibility and the WordPress
admin area
Key Issues
• Lack of design for accessibility in many key areas.
• Many tasks appear not to be achievable without use
of a mouse
• Those areas where accessibility features are included
can lack clear instructions – discoverability is so
important
• And remember – it’s not just about the blind…
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

33. General issues with the admin area
• Many, many links – including empty ones
• Visible focus
• Getting to where you want to be
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

34. Problem areas of admin screens
• Adding and Editing Posts and Pages
• Custom menu builder
• Theme customization
• Logging off
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

35. So what of the future?
• The situation is improving - slowly
• Users and testers are raising accessibility
issues
• These are getting fixed
• But, WordPress is made by many different
developers with differing ideas
• WordPress needs to have an accessibility
Mission Statement
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

36. Resources 1
WordPress Themes
• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• http://themeforest.net/
• http://www.woothemes.com/
WordPress Plugins
• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
• http://www.woothemes.com/
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

37. Resources 2
• WCAG Guidelines - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/
WARNING: Not all easy reading, but use the
‘Understanding WCAG’ section
• Accessibility sites and blogs (including my own)
• Webaim - http://webaim.org/
• Accessify - http://accessify.com/news/
• WebAxe - http://webaxe.blogspot.com/
• Coolfields (my own) - http://www.coolfields.co.uk/blog/
(including many guides to correct markup of forms, text for
screen readers only, etc)
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

38. Resources 3
• Validators and accessibility tools
• Markup validator - http://validator.w3.org/
• Wave - http://wave.webaim.org/
• Colour contrast analyser -
http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-
analyser.html
• NVDA - http://www.nvda-project.org/
• Useful Firefox Add-ons
• Fangs (screen reader emulator)
• HTML Validator
• Web Developer toolbar
• WCAG Contrast Checker
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields

39. To finish
Thanks for listening – any questions?
graham.armfield@coolfields.co.uk
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www.coolfields.co.uk
Coolfields Consulting @coolfields