BERJAYA Krupa Nanda 1:07 pm on May 11, 2026
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Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: May 07, 2026

These is the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.

Working Group Updates

Docs

@rianrietveld shared that the work is in progress on wpaccessibility.org:

  • update of the documentation about testing for accessibility.
  • add more internal resources to the different topics, to cross link the information on the site.

General

@joedolson shared the updates:

  • Work is progressing toward the WordPress 7.0 release. Because of the current uncertainty around the release timeline, work on 7.1 has been moving slowly.
  • The major open question is whether the 7.1 cycle will be shortened or delayed, which may directly affect the scope of work. Due to this uncertainty, current priorities will focus on already-milestoned issues instead of adding new items.

Gutenberg

Primary need is to work on the many accessibility issues that @joedolson cited on visual revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision.. Some of the work is already in progress, so at least some of the issues (and many of the most critical ones) will make it for 7.0

Please check https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/77530 for the reference.

Themes

The update was already share for accessibility-ready requirements. These are effective immediately, and we’ll be doing a big push to get existing themes updated.

Meta & Contribution Tracking Discussion

  • Attention was drawn to ongoing work in #meta-janitors, where several rapid changes are happening across WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ that may require accessibility review and input.
  • A discussion was introduced around automated contribution tracking for the accessibility team as part of the evolving Five for the Future (FFTF) initiative.
  • The goal is to move beyond self-reported contribution hours and instead rely more on measurable contribution data such as:
    • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. commits
    • TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/./GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ activity
    • Patches and PRs
    • Ticket participation
  • It was also acknowledged that many valuable contributions are harder to track, including:
    • Accessibility reviews
    • Documentation work
    • Expert guidance and discussions
    • Work on external properties like WPAccessibility.org

Key Clarifications

  • The current system is still in a very early and evolving stage.
  • No implementation decisions have been made yet for the Accessibility Team.
  • The team will eventually need to decide:
    • Which contribution signals should be tracked
    • Which data sources should be used
  • Existing pages related to this initiative currently function more like prototypes/demos and are not fully connected yet.

Community Concerns Raised

  • Some contributors shared that the documentation and process, especially steps 4 and 5 in the proposal, currently feel difficult to follow.
  • It was clarified that:
    • This initiative is not intended to change how contributors participate.
    • The focus is on understanding and representing existing contributions more accurately.

Action Items / Next Steps

  • Before further discussions, more clarity is needed around the technical implementation and data pipeline details.
  • No immediate action items were assigned.
  • The topic will be considered as a potential agenda item for a future bi-weekly meeting (likely not the next one due to GAAD scheduling).

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

#meeting-notes

BERJAYA Joe Dolson 2:30 pm on May 6, 2026
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Accessibility-Ready Requirements Updated

Effective today, the theme accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)-ready guidelines have been updated. The new guidelines more closely adhere to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAGWCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/.) expectations, although it continues to be the case that WCAG does not apply directly to themes; WCAG is a measurement for content, and themes are only a wrapper for your content.

Why are the accessibility-ready requirements changing?

The original requirements were written in 2011, and added to the theme review process in 2012. This was before WCAG 2.1 or WCAG 2.2 were published, and before HTML5 or ARIA had wide support and adoption. 

Since 2012, general awareness of accessibility has increased, and the capabilities for creating more accessible websites have also improved. It’s become increasingly important for WordPress’ Accessibility-ready requirements to modernize, to ensure that people implementing accessibility-ready themes are getting the best experiences.

Where can I find the new accessibility-ready requirements?

The theme review guidelines have been updated and are listed in the Accessibility section of the theme review handbook. The topics are currently being maintained on the Accessibility Team’s documentation site. On that site, you can also find extensive guidance on all of the accessibility issues raised by the theme review requirements. 

What has changed?

You should read the requirements for full details on what has changed. At a high level, here is a summary of changes:

  • Guidelines for themes have been updated to only include requirements, and “recommendations” have been removed. Some recommendations have been made requirements; other recommendations have been removed as they are best practices and not blockers to receiving accessibility-ready tag approval.
  • Requirement titles have been rewritten to clearly summarize the expectation.
  • All guidelines now follow a standard format with the following sections:
    • Basic principle: explains what the requirement is and why it matters.
    • Testing: includes a list of tools needed for the testing process and detailed, numbered, step-by-step explanations on how to test the requirement, with clear pass/fail criteria at each step.
    • WCAG resources: links to relevant WCAG docs that apply to our requirement, for people who want to learn more.
  • A standard process has been established for documenting testing in a Google Sheet, with a copyable template. The aim of this process is to make it easier for anyone to test, even without prior accessibility knowledge, and to ensure that theme developers receive consistent feedback, regardless of who tests their theme.
  • Some new requirements have been added:

How can I learn more about the requirements?

The documentation is very detailed, and covers how to test each requirement. However, to help users understand the process from the beginning, @alh0319 will be hosting a webinar on Thursday, May 21st – Global Accessibility Awareness Day. She’ll walk through the entire process of testing a theme for accessibility-ready standards, and attendees will be able to learn by testing themes during the webinar. 

If enough people sign up for the webinar, the aim is to get all of the current 108 accessibility-ready themes re-tested against the new requirements. @rianrietveld and @joedolson will be available to provide support and help testers work through challenges!

How does this impact my live accessibility-ready theme?

All accessibility-ready themes will be expected to update their themes to meet the new standards. Many of the requirements are essentially the same, but there are some new requirements as noted above. 

Theme authors will have until June 30th, 2026 to get their themes updated — either to update their accessibility, or to remove the tag. 

Read the requirements, update your theme, then please request a review when you’re ready!

Read the Requirements
Request an Accessibility Review

Thanks & Props

The primary work on the new accessibility-ready guidelines was done by Amber Hinds, with assistance from Joe Dolson. However, many others have contributed to the long process of developing the requirements and the process for testing:

Did you help with this process, but don’t see yourself in the list? Please comment below to let us know!

Additional thanks are owed to InstaWP, for donating their services to mount testing sites. You may wonder why this process isn’t using Playground, which is already available on WordPress.org. Unfortunately, Playground renders inside an iframeiframe iFrame is an acronym for an inline frame. An iFrame is used inside a webpage to load another HTML document and render it. This HTML document may also contain JavaScript and/or CSS which is loaded at the time when iframe tag is parsed by the user’s browser., which breaks a number of key testing tools used to examine the content, particularly bookmarklets. It is possible to test within Playground, but considerably more labor-intensive. 

The goal is to make it easier for anyone to contribute to theme accessibility-ready testing using common tools, and InstaWP makes this possible.

Reviewed by @alh0319 and @rianrietveld.

#accessibility-ready

BERJAYA Krupa Nanda 8:25 am on May 6, 2026  

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: May 07, 2026

This is the proposed agenda for the bi-weekly AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting on Thursday, May 7, 2026 15:00 UTC

Updates from the working group

  • Documentation
  • General
  • GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/
  • Themes

Open floor

If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.

The Accessibility Team bug scrub is every Tuesday at 16:00 UTC, held in the #accessibility channel on the Make WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ (registration required).

BERJAYA Krupa Nanda 11:15 am on April 30, 2026  

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: April 23, 2026

These is the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.

Working Group Updates

Docs

New and updated documentation: about alternative text for images, headings and links plus an introduction to WCAGWCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/..

Work in progress: documentation about how to test for accessibility, update of the info about the accessibility-ready tag in the themes handbook and figure out a section “Can I use”.

General

In bug scrubs, focus has been on assigning tickets for the 7.1 release, with 22 tickets currently milestoned. Due to the extended 7.0 release cycle, several new interfaces; mainly in GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/; still need review. Since the 7.1 schedule isn’t finalized yet, no significant increase in tickets is expected for now.

Gutenberg

Focus has been on reviewing new coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. features, particularly visual revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision., with many areas still needing attention. While work continues on client-side media and the tabs blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience., priority remains on features planned for the 7.0 release.

Key references include visual history updates and improvements to the Admin Font Library. There is a strong need for more review time to identify and raise issues, especially for features that haven’t yet been evaluated. Notably, real-time collaboration has not undergone accessibility testing yet. Contributors are encouraged to explore and help identify any gaps.

Themes

Progress on themes has been limited due to other priorities.

Thank you @joedolson and @rianrietveld for sharing the updates on working group.

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.

BERJAYA Rian Rietveld 8:58 am on April 30, 2026
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WP A11y Docs update April 2026

New and updated documentation: about alternative text for images, headings and links plus an introduction to WCAGWCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/.. Featured content: Styling links.

Work in progress: documentation about how to test for accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), update of the info about the accessibility-ready tag in the themes handbook and figure out a section “Can I use”.

New and updated content, added in April 2026:

Work in progress

At the moment we are working on extending and updating the docs about how to web accessibility.

In May ’26 we want to update the information in the Themes handbook about the accessibility-ready tag. We updated the guidelines and the current info on Themes handbook about accessibility is outdated.

We are also discussing if and how to set up a “Can I Use” section for coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks. With the status per blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. about its accessibility. All input is appreciated, we want to set something up that is not a ton of work, but is findable and informative for users. This may be a good topic to work on at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe ’26.

All feedback on the documentation is very much welcome.

#accessibility-ready, #wp-a11y-docs

BERJAYA Krupa Nanda 4:04 pm on April 22, 2026  

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: April 23, 2026

This is the proposed agenda for the bi-weekly AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting on Thursday, April 23, 2026 15:00 UTC

Updates from the working group

  • Documentation
  • General
  • GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/
  • Themes

Open floor

If you want to have a topic added to the agenda, please mention it in the comments of this post.

The Accessibility Team bug scrub is every Tuesday at 16:00 UTC, held in the #accessibility channel on the Make WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ (registration required).

BERJAYA Krupa Nanda 9:45 am on April 3, 2026
Tags: ,   

X-post: The Path Forward for WordPress 7.0

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/core: Comment on The Path Forward for WordPress 7.0

BERJAYA Aki Hamano 3:14 am on April 3, 2026
Tags: , wcasia2026   

Contribute to Accessibility at WordCamp Asia 2026 Contributor Day

WordCamp Asia 2026 is coming soon! This year’s WCAsia will take place in Mumbai, India, from April 9 to 11, 2026. The AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team works to make WordPress as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, and we are always looking for new contributors. We look forward to meeting many people who are interested in accessibility at Contributor Day.

Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ Schedule

Important Note: Remote support is available during the following hours:

What Should I Prepare to Contribute?

The most important thing is your desire to make WordPress accessible. Whether your interests are in code, testing, or documentation, we will guide you to the best way to contribute. If you would like to contribute with code, we recommend setting up a local development environment in advance.

If you are joining online, please join the #accessibility SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel and feel free to say hello to us.

Our Goals

One of the main goals of Contributor Day is to welcome contributors who are interested in accessibility and guide them on how to get involved. Below are some examples of specific goals:

  • Contribute to Documentation: Learn what documentation exists and how it is managed. Read the documentation and report areas that could be improved. Write new documentation.
  • Contribute to Code: Set up a development environment. Identify accessibility-related issues. Learn how to work on those issues.
  • Contribute to Testing: Test accessibility-related issues. Test WordPress and identify and report accessibility problems.

About Table Leads

Experienced members will support you. Please feel free to ask any questions—about what accessibility is, how you can contribute, what is required to contribute code, or anything else.

Helpful Resources

If you would like to learn about accessibility, we recommend reviewing the WP Accessibility Knowledge Base in advance. This document is a comprehensive accessibility guideline for WordPress and is continuously being improved. If you are interested in helping improve the documentation, please visit the GitHub repository.

Are you interested in contributing through testing or code? The Accessibility Handbook has a helpful page for finding accessibility-related tasks.

Another helpful resource is the Contributor Pathway for testing accessibility.

Props to @krupajnanda and @joedolson for peer review of this post.

#accessibility, #wcasia2026

BERJAYA Krupa Nanda 8:26 am on March 31, 2026
Tags: ,   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: March 26, 2026

These is the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.

  1. WordPress 7.0 RC2 released
  2. Only a week to go for WCAsia2026

Working Group Updates

Docs

@rianrietveld shared the updates for docs team as mentioned below.

  • Work is ongoing to extend and update documentation around alternative text (alt text) for images in WordPress
    • The goal is to make it useful not just for content creators, but also for developers
  • There is an active discussion around introducing a “Can I Use” section for coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks
    • This would highlight the accessibility status of each blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience., helping users understand current support and limitations both.

Generic Updates was shared by @joedolson. He is currently working on preparing the post about accessibility changes in WordPress 7.0 release and working on identifying tickets targeted for 7.1 release.

He mentioned that most focus right now should be on testing 7.0, to ensure that any new issues or regressions are caught before the actual release.

@joedolson also mentioned that the work on the theme accessibility-ready updates has been delayed due to the complexity of last-minute changes in WordPress 7.0 release. It is expected to resume post-release.

The upcoming bi-weekly meeting is cancelled in favour of WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia activities.
Our next meeting will take place directly on 23rd April on a regular time 15:00 UTC

#accessibility, #meeting-notes

BERJAYA Rian Rietveld 9:54 am on March 30, 2026
Tags:   

WP A11y Docs update March 2026

This update informs you about:

  • new and updated documentation on wpaccessibility.org;
  • work in progress.

New and updated documentation on wpaccessibility.org

  • Quick wins to improve the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of your website.
  • The Reading guide, vistors now can find content by role or expertise instead of by topic only.
  • A Disclaimer, in short: This documentation is intended to help the WordPress community understand and implement accessible practices. It is not a replacement for the official Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Focus management

Training

Start with accessibility: How to get training to learn web accessibility, with subpages addressing:

Current handbook

We will wait with transferring the current Accessibility Team Handbook to GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ until later, we need to explain and discuss this in more detail with the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team. Maybe WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe will be a good opportunity for this.

Work in progress

We are discussing if and how to set up a “Can I Use” section for coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks (GitHub issue 294). With the status per core blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. about its accessibility. All input is appreciated.

Documentation we are working on to improve at the moment:

  • Alt text for images in the content and in theme development.
  • Headings in the content and in theme development.
  • Introduction to WCAGWCAG WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/..
  • Accessibility for your business.
  • Legislation.

All feedback on the documentation is very much welcome.

#wp-a11y-docs