Apple Voice Control widens voice accessibility to iOS, MacOS
A complete voice-operated interface opens up Apple’s iPhones and computers to people with physical motor limitations.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is Thursday, May 16, 2019. This is the eighth annual GAAD event promoting accessibility awareness for design, development, usability, and related communities.
The purpose of Global Accessibility Awareness Day is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) access/inclusion and people with different disabilities.
Quick Tips for Developing an Accessible WordPress Site
WordPress is a great platform for developing accessible websites. This open source content management system (CMS) is well-documented and has a diverse and growing development community.
To ensure that your new WordPress site is accessible, it’s important to select an accessibility-ready theme, test plugins for accessibility, use accessible publishing techniques, and test new your pages for accessibility.
Choose an Accessible Theme
The first step in developing an accessible WordPress site is to choose an accessibility-ready theme. Accessibility-ready themes are built with accessibility in mind and include all of the basic features needed to create an accessible website including: keyboard accessible navigation, standards compliant HTML/CSS, responsive layouts, and more.
The WordPress theme directory includes a growing list of accessibility-ready themes. Also, there are some premium accessibility-ready themes available for purchase on Envato Market (ThemeForest).
To verify that a theme is accessibility-compliant, we recommend scanning the theme demo for your selected theme with Wave Accessibility Tool. Also, it’s important to check and confirm that accessibility-ready themes are fully keyboard accessible.
If you decide to invest in a custom WordPress theme, be sure to choose a developer who specializes in accessible website development. Check out our custom accessibility-certified WordPress packages for more information.
Use Accessible Plugins
While WordPress is a great platform for building accessible websites, there are many plugins in the WordPress plugin library are not fully accessible at this time. To ensure that your website is fully accessible, its important to test and verify that pages and functionality added by third-party plugins are accessible.
To test plugins, we recommend using an automated accessibility scanner (i.e. Wave Accessibility Tool) to scan plugin demos for accessibility errors. If a demo is not available for a plugin, you can install and test the plugin output on your own website.
Here is a brief list of a few plugins that we have found to have good support for accessibility:
- Visual Form Builder – plugin for creating simple web forms in WordPress.
- The Events Calendar – event management plugin by Modern Tribe.
- Max Mega Menu – mega menu plugin for WordPress.
Use the WYSIWYG Editor to Publish Accessible Posts
The new (Gutenberg) and classic editors in WordPress include a number of features to help you publish accessible WordPress posts. Here are some tips to ensure that your posts are accessible for assistive technology users:
- Use styles for headings (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) to structure your pages
- Format lists using the bulleted and numbered list options in the WYSIWYG editor.
- Format quotes using the blockquote option in WordPress.
- Add alternate text descriptions for images (excluding decorative images), and add a link to a page with a long-description for complex graphics.
- Use correct HTML encodings for special characters (under Special Character in WordPress).
Test Your Pages for Accessibility
Use an automated accessibility scanner to test your new pages for accessibility. We recommend using Wave Accessibility Tool for this task. Wave is feature rich and includes a graphical display of WCAG failures, contrast warnings, ARIA landmarks, and other information.
There is also an extension for Wave Accessibility Tool for Google Chrome that allows you to test pages that require cookies (i.e. for authenticated users).
Conclusion
By taking some time to evaluate accessible themes and plugins for WordPress, you can ensure that your new site is built on a solid foundation for accessibility. Building on this foundation, you can use the publishing tools in WordPress to create accessible content for your users and reach the widest audience possible for your products and services.
Need Help Developing an Accessible WordPress Site?
Check out our affordable accessibility-certified WordPress website packages.
50 Colleges Hit With ADA Lawsuits
Inside Higher Education – Lindsay McKenzie
Jason Camacho, a blind resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is suing 50 colleges over the accessibility of their websites.
The 50 lawsuits, filed in November, say the colleges are in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, as their websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. Camacho uses a screen reader and said he experienced barriers when trying to access the colleges’ websites.
Essential Accessibility Plugins for WordPress
Three WordPress Plugins that You Can Install Today to Improve the Accessibility of Your Website
Developing a fully accessible website presents numerous challenges. Luckily, the WordPress Plugin library includes a number of free plugins that can help you improve the accessibility of your website today. In this article we’ll cover five plugins that you can install today to immediately improve the accessibility of your website.
Max Mega Menu
Inaccessible drop down and mega menus are a common accessibility problem in WordPress CMS. Many custom navigation walker scripts do not generate keyboard accessible menus, and are missing other accessibility features (including keyboard focus for menu links).
Max Mega Menu plugin converts existing WordPress menus into accessible flyout and mega menus. The plugin addresses common keyboard accessibility problems present in many custom WordPress navigation walker scripts and includes styling for links to ensure that link focus is visible for navigation tabs and submenu links.
Max Mega Menu plugin also allows developers and website owners to customize link and menu styles directly in the WordPress dashboard—making menu setup quick and easy.
Learn more about Max Mega Menu Plugin
WP Accessibility
WP Accessibility is a free plugin that addresses a number of common accessibility problems in WordPress themes. The plugin includes options to add skip links with user-defined targets, language and text direction attributes to HTML, and styles for links to ensure that keyboard focus is visible. The plugin also includes a toolbar to allow users to toggle contrast, font size, and color saturation settings for your theme.
WP Accessibility is an excellent choice for developers and site owners who would like to take the first step to improve accessibility for assistive technology users.
Learn more about WP Accessibility
Simple Sitemap
Adding an HTML sitemap is one of the easiest ways to improve accessibility of your website. A sitemap gives users another navigation aid to access content on your website.
The Simple Sitemap plugin helps improve accessibility and SEO by generating a responsive HTML sitemap for your website. The plugin allows you to customize your HTML sitemap to include specific post types and gives you full control over how the sitemap displays on your pages.
Conclusion
The plugins covered in this article are not a complete accessibility solution for WordPress CMS. They do provide a good starting point to address some common accessibility errors in WordPress.
Max Mega Menu is an excellent choice for upgrading your menu systems for keyboard accessibility, while WP Accessibility provides some essential accessibility tools for WordPress CMS. WP Sitemap is an excellent choice for adding a simple HTML sitemap to your website.
When used with a standards-compliant theme and accessible publishing techniques, these plugins can provide a firm foundation upon which to build an accessible website.
If you have questions about accessibility plugins, or need help with your website, please contact us.
Blind advocates challenge state’s failure to provide accessible forms of communication to blind Medi-Cal consumers
Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) – October 22, 2018
A coalition of blind advocates today filed a class action lawsuit in Federal Court against the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and three counties for failing to provide Medi-Cal notices in accessible formats, such as Braille. The plaintiffs are the California Council of the Blind and three individuals.
First Lawsuits over Disabled Access to Websites make their way to Minnesota
Pioneer Press – Tad Vezner
Echoing a recent trend in other states, for the first time a lawsuit has been filed in Minnesota alleging that websites — in this case, belonging to a county and couple of cities — violate disability law.
Much like lawsuits demanding such things as wheelchair ramps and handicap parking, the suits claim the defendants’ digital real estate is so inhospitable it denies access.
National Survey Reveals Increased Awareness About the Capabilities of People Who Are Blind in the Workforce
PR Newswire – Sept 2018
According to the results of the 2018 survey, conducted by ResearchNowSSI, recruiting, training, and retaining employees with disabilities has grown in importance by 12 percentage points compared to the 2012 survey. Additionally, more hiring managers agree there are a greater number of jobs that employees who are blind can successfully perform.
Getting Started with Document Accessibility
Inaccessible documents can be a major accessibility barrier for assistive technology (AT) users. At worst, some document accessibility errors can make online documents completely inaccessible for people with disabilities. Some common accessibility problems for documents include:
- Scanned documents that contain no data for assistive technology devices
- Untagged PDF documents that lack structure to be interpreted properly by assistive technology
- Documents with images missing alternate text descriptions, headings, and other semantic information for AT users
Learn more about common document accessibility errors and applicable standards
To ensure that documents are accessible for people with disabilities, it’s important to test and verify document accessibility. Here are some steps to address document accessibility in your organization:
- Take an inventory of electronic documents on your website – be sure to note the types of documents, and locate source documents (if available).
- Remove documents that are no longer needed – the easiest way to address accessibility errors is to remove documents that are no longer needed.
- Use the built-in accessibility checkers in MS Word and Adobe Acrobat to identify and address accessibility errors.
- Use the Accessibility Checker in MS Word to identify and address accessibility errors in your Word documents.
- Use the Acrobat Pro DC Accessibility Checker to identify and address accessibility errors in your PDF documents.
- Request a Document Accessibility Audit – a document accessibility audit is invaluable to document and characterize accessibility errors, and develop a remediation plan to achieve compliance with Section 508 and WCAG 2.0.
- Explore Professional Development Opportunities for your teams – professional development is the best way to proactively address document accessibility, and ensure that future documents are published in accessible formats.
Document Accessibility Solutions
Aurora provides document accessibility solutions for businesses and organizations looking to achieve compliance WCAG 2.0.
Xbox Adaptive Controller Available Today
By COLIN STEVENS, IGN
The Xbox Adaptive Controller, Microsoft’s flexible answer to adapting input for gamers with limited mobility, is officially available today.
Announced by Microsoft, the Xbox Adaptive Controller’s standard package can be purchased for $100, either through The Microsoft Store or GameStop Online. Extensions for the controller that can be tailored to each gamer’s specific needs, like the QuadStick, one-handed joysticks, foot pedals and more, can be purchased separately.