Equalize Digital, a WordPress accessibility products and services company, has added a new frontend highlighting feature to its free accessibility checker plugin, which is used to perform audits on self-hosted sites. The feature was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), through Equalize Digital’s consulting work on the new NASA websites. NASA recently…
The WP Community Collective (WPCC), a non-profit organization created to support individual WordPress contributors and community-led initiatives, has funded its first fellowship. Alex Stine, a fully blind individual contributor who has been working with the WordPress Accessibility team since 2016, is the first recipient of the funds designated for the fellowship. WPCC reports that the…
Equalize Digital, a WordPress accessibility products and consulting company, has received an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from Emilia Capital, the investment company owned by Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt. The investment will be used to accelerate the growth of Equalize Digital’s Accessibility Checker plugin, a tool for auditing websites for WCAG,…
The WP Community Collective (WPCC), a newly formed nonprofit organization dedicated to funding individual WordPress contributors and community-led initiatives, has announced its first Accessibility Fellow. Alex Stine, a fully blind individual contributor who has been working with the WordPress Accessibility team since 2016, is the first recipient of the fellowship. WPCC is managing its finances…
WordPress Core Committer Jb Audras, CTO of the France-based Whodunit agency, has released two new accessibility plugins in cooperation with Guillaume Turpin, another developer on the Whodunit team. These are small “micro” plugins developed to fill gaps in the block editor’s accessible content creation experience. The first plugin is called Lang Attribute for the Block…
Meetup.com has removed its accessibility overlay, a recent addition to the company’s website that raised concerns with the WordPress community and the broader community of accessibility professionals. The overly was powered by EqualWeb, a product which claims to provide automated compliance with accessibility standards but doesn’t address inaccessibility at the root of the problem. WordPress Community…
On the podcast today we have Christina Deemer. Christina is a senior UX developer at Lede, where she champions accessibility and headless WordPress in her work with publishers and nonprofits. At the recent WordCamp US, Christina gave a presentation called “embracing minds of all kinds, making digital content usable for people with cognitive disabilities”. And…
WordPress Accessibility Day is just one week away on November 2-3, and registration is still open. Co-lead organizer Amber Hinds published an impressive speaker lineup with 40 speakers from 14 countries. She also noted that 40% of the event’s sessions have at least one speaker who identifies as living with a disability. WordPress professionals who…
WP Accessibility Day 2022 is taking place next month on November 2-3. The one-day virtual event features 24 hours of talks on building accessible websites in WordPress. It is independently organized by volunteers from WordPress’ Accessibility Team and other community members. The schedule for the event is currently a password-protected page but should be available…
On the podcast today we have Joe Dolson. Joe is a WordPress plugin developer, a core committer, and a web accessibility consultant. He’s part of the Make WordPress Accessible team, the team dedicated to improving accessibility in the WordPress ecosystem. His recent presentation at WordCamp US entitled ‘Finding and Fixing the Six Most Common WCAG…
After a seven-month long effort across multiple contributor teams, the Twenty Twenty-Two (TT2) default theme will be tagged as “Accessibility-Ready” when WordPress 6.1 ships in November. It is the first block theme to meet the requirements for gaining this distinction. During its development the theme was also tested and found to meet WCAG AA level…
WordPress Accessibility Day, a free, 24-hour virtual event, is set for November 2-3, 2022. The event was first founded in 2020 and will continue this year led by Joe Dolson and Amber Hinds. It was previously run by the WordPress core Accessibility Team through the WordPress Foundation but organizers are running it independently this year…
On the podcast today we have Amber Hinds. We talk about what online accessibility means, and how it ought to influence any website build. We consider the situations people who need an accessible website might find themselves in. What are they experiencing as they browse the web and what tools are they using? What tools…
Today marks the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a civil rights law passed in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against people with physical or mental impairments that substantially limit a major life activity. The legislation continues to help disabled people gain equal access to employment, schools, transportation, government services, and public accommodations.…
AccessiBe and other similar tools are coming under fire after more than 400 accessibility advocates and developers signed an open letter calling on the industry to unite against the use of accessibility overlay products. These overlay “widgets” are technologies that apply third-party code to the front end in an attempt to automate repairs after sites…