Accessibility with Word Press Webinar Handout Text Only 
Slide 1 
Accessibility with Word Press
The Accessible Technology Webinar Series is sponsored by the Great Lakes ADA Center and the Pacific ADA Center, both members of the ADA National Network.
The Session is Scheduled to begin at 1:00 pm CST
We will be testing audio quality periodically
The content and materials of this training cannot be used or distributed without permission. This training is funded under award #H133A060097 from the U.S. Department of Education through the auspices of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR. For permission to use training content or obtain copies of materials used as part of this program please contact us by email at adata@adagreatlakes.org or toll free (800) 949-4232 (V/TTY) in IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, and WI.  For other all other states call (312) 413-1407
Slide 2 
Webinar Features
Closed captioning – click CC icon (located in the Audio/Video Panel) or control-F8 (command-F8) and adjust your screen.
Questions - Highlight “Great Lakes” in the participant list and “right click” on your mouse to send a private message.  Type your message into the chat area that appears.  The question will be viewed by all moderators. (Keyboard - F6, Arrow up or down to locate “Great Lakes” and select to send a message )
Customize your view – You can change the size and location of any of the panels (Chat, etc.) by hovering your mouse over the         icon at the right of each panel and select “Detach Panel”.  Each panel can be repositioned and resized.
Please do not use emoticons or hand-raising features during this session
Slide 3
Accessibility with WordPress
Limitations and Benefits
Slide 4
Who am I?
	- A WordPress plug-in developer
	- An advocate and consultant on web accessibility
	- A writer on practical accessibility
	- Read more at http://www.joedolson.com
Slide 5
Why WordPress?
WordPress is a free, open source CMS
WordPress has many active users – 65% of the most popular 1 million sites are built on WordPress
Many of the accessibility limitations in WordPress can be easily overcome, with a little knowledge.
Slide 6
WordPress Accessibility: the problems
Slide 7
650,000 top sites – that's a lot of visitors!
- Inaccessible themes – affects your users
- Inaccessible plug-ins – affects the plug-in's users
- Core problems in WordPress – affect everybody
- Writing Accessible Content – created by everybody
Slide 8	
What's a Theme?
- Themes control the structure and appearance of a site
- Almost all of the public experience of a WordPress site comes from the theme.
- For most sites, most accessibility problems come from the theme.
Slide 9
Finding Accessible Themes
	- Most themes are not accessible.
	- Finding accessible themes is very, very difficult.
	- Building custom themes is expensive.
	- Customizing themes for accessibility is not cheaper.
	- Most accessible themes are actually frameworks.
Slide 10
What's a framework?
	-Basic structure and layout
	- minimal color or ornamentation.
	- Easy for a developer to modify.
Slide 11
What's a framework?
	-Basic structure and layout
	- minimal color or ornamentation.
	- Easy for a developer to modify.
- Not so easy for a casual user.
Slide 12
Some (reportedly) accessible themes:
- Blaskan: http://blaskan.net/
- Skeleton: http://www.badeyes.com/services/
- Ambrosia: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ambrosia
- Scrapbook: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/scrapbook
- Genesis Child Theme: http://wp-accessible.org/2012/11/release-version-0-2-of-the-accessible-genesis-child-theme/
- Twenty-Eleven Child theme: https://github.com/RRWD/accessible-twenty-eleven-theme
- Twenty-Twelve Child theme:
http://daniemon.com/blog/accessible-wp-theme-twenty-twelve/
Slide 13
In the WordPress Core
Slide 14
Some fundamental problems.
Most of the base HTML and functionality generated by WordPress is great
A couple things don't quite meet specs:
 - Empty searches do not return an error
 - Default values for “more” links are not specific.
 - Tons of redundant title attributes
 - Contact forms with un-associated text
These are mostly fixable in themes

Slide 15
Front-end Accessibility with WordPress?
	- Without the theme, there's no web site.
	- Themes and plug-ins are the primary sources of 
problems using WordPress accessibly.
Slide 16
WordPress 3.5 was big for the admin:
	- Removed tabindex
	- Added skiplinks
	- Fixed tabbing order in many  contexts
	- Now possible to log out by keyboard (but not by voice command)
	- Numerous form fields now properly labeled
	- Keyboard navigation has clearly visible focus  	
	- Screen Options now much more easily found and used, giving better access to screen customizations and accessibility modes
Slide 17
WordPress 3.6 is still moving forward:
	- Improves the Add Media Panel
	- Adds screen reader and keyboard support for Custom Menu interface
	- Improvements in usability and accessibility for version comparison
Slide 18
What about those plug-ins?
- WordPress plug-ins are all over the map
- There is little to no quality checking in the plug-in repository.
- Even if there was, checking for accessibility would be almost impossible to do.
- Yikes.
Slide 19
What do you use plug-ins for?
- Contact forms
- Calendars
- eCommerce
- Social Media widgets
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Thousands of other tasks
Slide 20
Plug-in Guide
- Contact forms
- Calendars
- eCommerce
- Social Media widgets
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Thousands of other tasks
	
Slide 21
Using Plug-ins
•	There are over 20,000 plug-ins in the repository. You cannot assume that most of them are accessible.
•	Due to the nature of the WordPress.org plug-in search engine, most of the results for 'accessible' do not relate to accessibility.
•	Most plug-ins must be vetted independently.
	
Slide 22
What is available now?
Install and configure my plugin WP Accessibility: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-accessibility/
Slide 23
What can the WP-Accessibility plug-in do?
•	Remove redundant title attributes
•	Enable skip links with WebKit
•	Add skip links with user-defined targets.
•	Add language and text direction attributes
•	Remove the target attribute from links.
•	Force a search page error on an empty search
•	Remove tabindex from elements that are focusable.
•	Strip title attributes from images in content.
•	Add post titles to "read more" links.
•	Add an outline to the :focus state for focusable elements.
•	Improve accessibility of admin styles
Slide 24
What can't this plug-in do?
•	Fix color contrast issues.
•	Correct forms to add labels or give meaningful errors.
•	Fix heading structures for screen reader navigation.
•	Give appropriate alt attributes to images
•	Correct for many possible unknowns...
Slide 25	
What about creating 
accessible content?	
Slide 26
P.O.U.R. Principles
•	Perceivable
•	Operable
•	Understandable
•	Robust
	
Slide 27
Example:
https://sites.google.com/site/antarcticaclassproject/
What does this example do wrong?
What does it do right?
Hint: you can see everything that's on the page.
Slide 28
1 image of earth 
1 image of Antarctica 
This page, prepared by three students in Professor James Aber’s Fall 2009 Introduction to Geospatial Analysis class at Emporia State University, provides information about Antarctica, where one of the three students, Molly Reardon, is currently located. 
Slide 29
Imagining Accessibility
•	What is missing if you can't see the page?
•	What is missing if you can't hear audio?
•	What can't be operated if you can't use a mouse?
•	What is lost if you are using a tablet or mobile device?
Slide 30
Web Readers Skim
•	Everybody skims on the web
•	Everybody wants to skim on the web
•	How does assistive technology allow skimming?
	
Slide 31
Is that all?
For now, yes. There are undoubtedly other accessible WordPress themes: but no easy way to find them.
Searching for accessible themes requires critical judgement.
Audited accessibility tag is coming to the WordPress theme repository – but it's not there yet.
WP Accessibility can fix some problems, but not all.
The Cities Project is working on building accessible WordPress themes: http://accessiblejoe.com/cities/	
Slide 32
What's the summary?
•	On the public side, WordPress makes very few mistakes, and these can be corrected by a theme or plug-in.  BUT: WordPress only controls a small percentage of the presentation of a web site.
•	Currently available themes are generally lacking a focus on accessibility; and there isn't a good way to find accessible themes.
•	Extending WordPress via plug-ins is hazardous, and requires careful vetting.
•	The admin, though not perfect, is improving.
Slide 33
Accessibility Resources.
- WCAG Recommended Techniques: highly technical, though simpler than the WCAG itself. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-TECHS/
- WebAIM: Simplified summaries, recommendations. Extensive documentation on almost every accessibility topic: http://webaim.org
- University of Minnesota, Duluth Web Design References: Extensive curated catalog of accessibility articles on the web: http://bit.ly/t3tPZC
Slide 34
Questions?
Slide 35
Thank you for participating!
Next Session is September 19, 2013
Creating Accessible PDFs Part 1 
Building Accessibility Into Source Documents
This session was recorded and will be 
archived at 
http://www.ada-audio.org/Webinar/AccessibleTechnology/