2023 Sessions

Jennison Asuncion is best known as a co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). Occurring the third Thursday of May every year since 2012, GAAD has had a profound impact in expanding awareness of accessibility around the world. Joe Dolson, co-founder of WordPress Accessibility Day, will have a wide-ranging conversation with Jennison about the state…

Oftentimes when we speak of web accessibility, our minds can immediately go to optimizing for the visually impaired - and then we stop there. Equally important to consider are those with neurodivergence, learning challenges, poor internet connections, unique devices, and more. Designers, developers, marketers, and content creators who work on website content need to be thinking of a…

We are familiar with what we do. Too familiar. That is why it becomes harder and harder to objectively test our wordpress websites. By doing usability and accessibility tests, you can find how to improve the accessibility of your site with data driven decisions!

Emerging technologies necessitate an expanded knowledge base and technical proficiency in fields such as digital accessibility. We're looking at things like how to design user-friendly apps and websites, how to show data in a clear way, how to change businesses for the better, how to start new businesses, and how to come up with new…

Content published in a WordPress Learning Management System (LMS) needs to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). However, following WCAG is not enough. We want to make sure that students have a great experience. To build a great learning experience, we need to do more than follow the rules. In this session, we'll talk…

Every day we have a series of choices to make. Get up early to work out or hit the snooze button? Double foam mocha latte or decaf green tea? Tabs or spaces? Our choices — even the small ones — shape our identities and help frame how we see the world. Today we expect multiple…

This presentation is a practical demonstration of how to build an accessible WordPress page and post using the block editor. The demonstration will refer to specific accessibility topics and how to make sure they are considered during the page creation process. Two complete and accessible web pages will be completed by the end of the…

We as website owners have an opportunity to not only respect the privacy rights of our website visitors, but to also ensure our websites can properly be accessed by all individuals, regardless of any disabilities. Not only does this help website owners comply with laws (and avoid non-compliance fines or lawsuits), but it also helps…

POV: It's 2023 and most images have bad alt text. Why is that? We know alt text is required to reach any level of WCAG conformance and it's one of the top 5 most common errors in digital accessibility lawsuits and demand letters. Take a look at the alt text behind the scenes of your…

Whether it’s FAQs or collapsible forms, accordion elements require extra care and attention when being designed and developed. This talk will go into the basics of structuring an accordion, best practices around ARIA labels and semantic elements, and explore some additional resources for building your accordions with accessibility in mind. Then we’ll step into the…

Graphs and charts visualize complex data, making patterns inside datasets easier to understand. An important part of creating data visualizations is ensuring that they are accessible and responsive, so that they may be understood by as many people, using as many kinds of devices as possible. This developer-focused presentation will demonstrate how to create a…

Micro-interactions and animations can be a really fun way to add a little bit of flair and personality to a website. There are some basic guidelines to follow in general when it comes to animations, but what about when it comes to respecting the preferences of the people that visit? From concept to execution, this…

This talk aims to shed light on the consequences of incorrect ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) implementation. In this presentation, Rashmi Katakwar will discuss the good intentions behind ARIA usage and how developers can unknowingly fall into the trap of bad ARIA due to insufficient knowledge. She will brief the five rules of ARIA, with…

Unfortunately, when developing WCAG2, the Working Group did not envision the current world where mobile is almost ubiquitous. For example, on a mobile device, there is no continual access to a keyboard (unless someone is using it as an add-on to the device – or using a Blackberry Classic). WCAG2 requires that all content be…

Embark on a journey with Birgit Olzem, a distinguished WordPress advocate and a beacon in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as she navigates the intricate landscape of invisible illnesses and chronic disabilities within the WordPress community. Birgit, a former co-organizer of WordCamp Europe (in 2018 and 2019) and co-lead for WordCamp Germany, brings…

This talk will focus on some of the simplest but usually overlooked ways to making emails more accessible. Email still remains to be one of the most effective and profitable tools used to promote and sell products. Unfortunately, there are some specific aspects of emails that can present critical accessibility and usability issues. This session…

When auditing sites, most people understand and know WCAG 2.1 requirements. However, when using a tool like WordPress, there are guidelines that are sometimes overlooked: ATAG. This talk will walk through what is needed to understand and test ATAG successfully when using an authoring tool and how you choose one that allows everyone to create…

Deneb will discuss the reasons an accessible menu is essential to providing a good experience for website visitors. He'll explore some of the many ways the default menus of various WordPress themes fall short of providing an accessible experience to visitors. He'll explain how to check a theme's menu for accessibility, and how to remediate…

Automated accessibility testing has become the norm to bringing accessibility into the development lifecycle. As great as it is to have accessibility in the day to day development, many of the teams that adopt these tools and testing frameworks are overwhelmed by the sheer number of them and do not know where to start. In…

Keyboard Access is an integral part of web accessibility, and designers, developers and QA engineers should all be aware of this important topic. This presentation will discuss different challenges faced by keyboard-only users on the web. Attendees will learn how to implement keyboard navigation, operability, logical tabbing order, and focus visibility. Along with learning about…

The decision of which theme to start your accessible website with can make a huge difference in how much tweaking and rework is involved down the line. This talk will cover screen readers, and the various theme elements to assist those users. It will also cover a number of WordPress CSS classes that help with…

Contrast and color use are two of the trickiest areas within the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). There is a great deal of fine print that can make these topics overwhelming for designers, developers, and others who create or evaluate web content. In this hands-on session, we will decode the contrast and color requirements in…