These are the weekly notes for the Make WordPress Accessibility Team meeting, that occurred Friday, 17:00 UTC. You can read the entire transcript on our Slack channel and view the Meeting Agenda here. The meeting begins after the conclusion of the bug scrub, a welcome to new attendees, and rules for a family-friendly meeting.
Update from Working Groups
As usual, we had a round of updates from the various working groups inside our Accessibility team.
Design Team
Design Team news was shared by @shaunandrews, listing some tickets and issues on Trac and GitHub which might benefit from review from the team:
- Ticket 54270 – About Page for 5.9 Release;
- Ticket 54489 – Update the Dashboard Welcome Banner for 5.9;
- Issue 37067 – Panel Color Gradient settings to use dropdowns; and
- Issue 37075 – Load the template list in the site editor without page reloads.
@joedolson suggested that the priority should probably be the About Page for 5.9. Also, volunteers were requested to review these issues so that they’ll be handled. Joe volunteered for the Welcome screen update and possibly the About Page. @alexstine subscribed to the template selection issue to track its progress.
Documentation Team
@azhiyadev provided the update for the Documentation Team. During the week before the meeting, she had a further look at the handbook, checking for WCAG versions referred to and updating broken links. She asked a couple questions.
- Should the handbook be converted to using the block editor?
- In terms of plugin recommendations, are there any concerns regarding plugins that haven’t been tested with the latest version of WordPress? An example of one that is recommended is WP Libre Forms (referred in the handbook and tested up to WordPress 4.8.17).
Regarding the use of the block editor for the handbook, @ryokuhi expressed an opinion that we should stick with the classic editor for the handbook, as Gutenberg is still difficult to use for people with disabilities (in case editing is needed by those using assistive technologies). @shaunandrews added that having more people use the block editor and report any accessibility issues is the best way to improve the experience.
Regarding recommended plugins, those that haven’t been tested at least with version 5.7 should be removed. Joe is really uncomfortable recommending anything that shows evidence of being abandoned in the repository. This section needs to be updated desperately.
Also, @azhiyadev asked if there were any recommendations for web forms plugins to be listed in the handbook. Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms were suggested by @joedolson, but additional clarification was needed (regarding whether Gravity Forms’ WCAG 2.0 form field plugin is still needed). Finally, we should indicate that we have not conducted a full accessibility audit on these recommendations.
General Team
At the moment there aren’t any accessibility tickets milestones for 5.9. For the news, 28 tickets milestoned for 5.9 will be included in the next release.
Media Team
This team has finished off quite a bit and is now planning for 6.0. Planning includes preparation for updating the search and filtering options in the Media Library.
Themes Team
@sabernhardt reported that Twenty Twenty-Two has an h1 related issue (Issue 233). @joedolson will comment on the issue and @ryokuhi stated we’ll probably need to discuss this issue again in the future to see if a review of the Accessibility-Ready guidelines is required.
Open Floor
There will only be a bug scrub on December 10th and our next team meeting will resume December 17th, our last gathering of 2021.
A reminder that WordPress Accessibility Day returns in 2022 and the first organizational meeting for this event kicks off December 16th. DM @joedolson for more details and an invitation.