Building Accessible And Inclusive WordPress Sites
Making WordPress Accessible for All Users
Building an accessible and inclusive WordPress website is important to provide equal access and full participation for people with disabilities. By following web accessibility standards and best practices during the design, development, and content creation process, WordPress sites can be made accessible to people with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities.
Understanding Accessibility and Inclusion
Defining accessibility and inclusion
Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with them. It encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities.
Inclusion means ensuring equal access and opportunity for people with disabilities to participate fully in all aspects of life. Building an inclusive WordPress site requires considering and integrating accessibility needs during the planning, design, development, and content authoring processes.
Why accessibility and inclusion matter
There are over 1 billion people in the world living with disabilities. Ensuring digital accessibility and inclusion helps provide them with equal opportunity and independence. Specifically:
- Accessible sites are more usable and convenient for all users, with or without disabilities
- It helps organizations comply with disability discrimination laws and avoid legal risks
- It demonstrates social responsibility and builds trust with customers
- Accessible interfaces tend to have better code quality, site performance, and SEO
WCAG Guidelines to Follow
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) published by the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) are the international standard for web accessibility. They consist of a set of recommendations organized around four guiding principles:
Perceivable
Information and interface components must be presented in ways perceivable to users. This includes providing text alternatives for non-text content and captions/transcripts for audiovisual media, adapting content to different screen sizes, ensuring foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast, allowing text to be resized without assistive technology, and more.
Operable
Interface components and navigation must be operable by all users. Required features include keyboard accessibility, color contrast, timing adjustments, avoidance of content that causes seizures, predictable navigation and scrolling mechanisms, and a logical focus order.
Understandable
Information and interface operation must be understandable to all users. This requires readable text content; predictable navigation and interface components; assistance to help users avoid and correct mistakes; and compatibility with assistive technologies like screen readers.
Robust
Content must be interpreted reliably by diverse user agents and assistive technologies. This requires valid HTML markup, reliable code libraries, following accessibility coding best practices, and thorough testing with assistive technologies.
Coding for Accessibility
Web developers must follow coding best practices and use proper HTML to build accessible WordPress sites. Key requirements include:
Using proper HTML tags and attributes
Ensure all pages have correctly structured HTML with appropriate tags used for headings, lists, quotations, and other elements. Use ARIA roles, labels, and descriptions to communicate contextual information for interface elements.
Providing text alternatives for images
Use the alt attribute to provide descriptive alternative text for images, graphics, and embedded multimedia. Provide detailed text descriptions for complex images. Text alternatives convey the purpose of non-text elements to screen reader users.
Writing descriptive link text
Link text should clearly indicate the destination or purpose of each link using descriptive language. Avoid vague link text like “click here” or “read more”. Ensure links make sense when read independently of surrounding text.
Ensuring sufficient color contrast
All text and important visual elements must have a minimum contrast ratio between foreground and background colors of 4.5:1. Higher ratios are required for large fonts. Sufficient contrast ensures readability for low vision users.
Allowing content to be presented differently
Use responsive web design to gracefully adapt layouts for different screen sizes. Ensure logical reading order and navigation operability when content reflows across narrow viewports. Follow WordPress best practices for responsive images and embeds.
Accessible Themes and Plugins
Using accessible WordPress themes and plugins designed with ARIA roles, labels, color contrast, and other criteria significantly simplifies building accessible sites. Popular options include:
Popular accessible themes
- AccessPress Parallax
- Divi by ElegantThemes
- GeneratePress
- OceanWP
Essential accessibility plugins
- WP Accessibility by Joe Dolson
- Access Monitor by Joe Dolson
- Accchecker by Josh Barr
Refer to WCAG criteria when selecting premium themes and plugins to ensure they meet required standards. Always test finished pages for conformance issues.
Testing and Validation
Thoroughly testing WordPress sites for accessibility defects is required before launch. Key recommended practices include:
Manual testing best practices
- Keyboard navigation testing
- Screen reader testing
- Color contrast analysis
- Link text verification
Automated testing tools
- Tenon Accessibility Checker
- WAVE Evaluation Tool
- Accessibility Checker (Firefox browser extension)
Identify and fix any automated checker warnings. Perform follow up manual checks to catch additional defects. Retest when adding new posts, pages, multimedia or site features.
Maintaining an Accessible Site
Building and launching accessible WordPress websites is just the first step. Ongoing maintenance is required, including:
Establishing processes and policies
- Document accessibility standards for content teams
- Train site editors on accessibility principles
- Schedule periodic site evaluations
Continued testing and updates
- Retest site whenever plugins or WordPress core updates installed
- Perform quarterly site scans with automated checkers
- Stay updated on evolving web accessibility regulations
By integrating these practices into normal site operations, you can achieve ongoing conformance for an accessible WordPress site.
Additional Resources for Building Inclusive Sites
For more information and techniques on designing accessible and inclusive websites, consult these additional helpful resources:
- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) by the W3C
- Web Accessibility Perspectives Videos by Google
- A11y Project community accessibility guides
- WP Accessibility Handbook for WordPress
- Books like “A Web for Everyone” by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery
