As per last week, we had a very lively and interesting meeting with the main focus being Custom Menus (again) and the use of hidden skip links. Thanks to all who took part — especially a couple of UI team members. The inter-team discussion is invaluable as it allows us to get a better perspective on the overall core development philosophies as well as the current development cycle goals. I think the more we learn about the development process, the more effective we can become at offering practical, effective, suggestions at the right times.
User Testing
@accessiblejoe will be looking at developing videod user tests for the CSUN conference based on the list provided by @GrahamArmfield and the alter discussion on IRC:
- Logon and interpret dashboard and toolbar
- Publish new post including use of headings, bold etc. Add categories and tags.
- Edit post to add media (image or pdf) with caption, alt text etc.
- Update user options including setting new password
- Use Theme Customizer to change Site Title and background colours etc.
- Creation of a simple custom menu; re-ordering of menu items including a single item sub-menu.
- Logging out of WordPress.
We hope that any videos obtained will help the core development teams to gain a better understanding of some of the issues faced by disabled users.
Front-end Accessibility
@joedolson is still working on an extension of the Theme Check plugin as part of the optional accessibility audit for all themes submitted to wordpress.org. He now has a modified version of the plugin available for testing and is actively looking for feedback.
There was also a lively discussion of “hidden” links — including both skip links and the current log out link (which is effectively hidden in a dropdown) — and balancing link visibility with the need to avoid a cluttered interface.
Finally, a reminder to all readers that, as a group, we are still stretched pretty thin and would welcome new members — both technical developers and non-technical disabled authors.