These are the weekly notes for the accessibility team meeting that happens on Fridays. You can read the full transcript on our Slack channel and find the meeting’s agenda here.
Notice to discourage use of IE11
The team discussed this Trac ticket that proposes to encourage users, through a message or notification, to upgrade from IE11.
The team agreed that having a permanently dismissible notice is a good idea but we should however be mindful of folks who can’t upgrade due to work requirements or version of assistive technology being used. Ending support for IE11 should be a separate issue.
Remove aria-label from links
We also discussed this GitHub PR that is attempting to fix a problem when creating a link in the block editor and is set to open on a new tab.
Currently, the link gets an aria-label with the link’s label and a string appended that indicates that the link will open in a new browser tab. The issue is that the appended string is not being set to the document’s language, but to the language wp-admin is set to.
The team agreed that removing the currently broken functionality to add the aria-label is good first step, but would like to see a solution implemented as well.
We think that making the string visible would be ideal, since all users would benefit from this piece of information. It should also be set to the document’s language, because this string will be used in a public context.
Advancing the block interface
This recent Gutenberg GitHub issue that explores refinements to the block toolbar was shared with the team for awareness. It’s a long read, so we’ll revisit the item next week once everyone has had time to digest it.
Global WordPress Accessibility Day
We revisited the idea of having a global WordPress accessibility day. This had been discussed earlier in the year and a spreadsheet for those interested in participating was created.
Since this was discussed a while ago, we ask those who had already signed up to confirm their participation, or remove themselves from the spreadsheet if they won’t be participating anymore.
Anyone who’s not on the list and wants to participate is welcome to add their details.
The organizing team will be coordinating to set up a planning meeting. Folks are also welcome to join the #accessibility-events channel in the Making WordPress Slack (requires registration).