Enhance Your WordPress Site with WCAG Best Practices!

Did you know that nearly 1 in 5 people have a disability that affects their use of the web? Ensuring that your WordPress site is accessible to everyone is not only the right thing to do, but it can also broaden your audience and improve user experience. In this blog post, we will delve into the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and explore how you can implement these best practices to enhance your WordPress site. We’ll cover everything from planning and designing to developing and testing, ensuring that your website is accessible to all users.

Planning for Accessibility

Start Early

Build accessibility into the design and development process from the very beginning. By considering accessibility from the outset, you can avoid costly retrofits later on and ensure a smoother development process.

Choose the Right Plugins

During the planning phase, decide whether to use a WordPress accessibility plugin. There are several excellent options available, such as accessiBe and UserWay, but ensure that the chosen plugin aligns with your design, including font sizes and colour contrasts.

Collaborate Across Teams

From day one, ensure that designers, developers, and content creators collaborate on accessibility. This unified approach ensures that accessibility is considered at all stages of the project and that everyone is working towards the same goal.

Designing and Developing with Accessibility in Mind

Improve Colour Contrast and Visual Clarity
  • High Contrast Mode: Ensure sufficient colour contrast between text and background. Aim for at least a 4.5:1 ratio for standard text and 3:1 for large text. Tools like Stark or any contrast checker can help with this.
  • Consider Colour-Blind Users: Use more than just colour to convey information. Combine colours with icons or text labels to indicate status or category.
  • Test Different Light Conditions: Ensure that designs are readable in various light conditions, such as direct sunlight or low light.
Screen Reader Optimisation
  • Use ARIA Landmarks and Roles: Add ARIA landmarks like role=”banner”, role=”main”, and role=”navigation” to help screen reader users navigate your page.
  • Proper Use of Headings: Provide a clear and logical structure of headings from <h1> to <h6>. Never skip heading levels, as this can confuse screen readers.
  • Descriptive Alt Text: Provide meaningful and concise alternative text for images. Alt text should describe the image’s content or function, not just its appearance.
Provide Text Equivalents for Multimedia
  • Video Captions and Transcripts: Provide captions for all video content and transcripts for audio content. This benefits users with hearing impairments and those who can’t play audio in certain environments.
  • Descriptive Audio Descriptions: For videos with critical visual information, consider offering audio descriptions that describe important visual elements.
Reduce Motion Sensitivity
  • Minimise Motion and Animation: Excessive motion can affect users with vestibular disorders. Use the prefers-reduced-motion media query to detect user preferences and reduce or eliminate animations.
  • Provide Control Over Animations: Allow users to pause, stop, or disable animations if your web application includes motion effects.
Expand Semantic HTML Usage

Use HTML5 semantics, such as <header>, <nav>, <main>, <article>, and <footer>, to help assistive technologies understand the structure of your content.

Make the Keyboard Accessible
  • Interactive Elements: Ensure that all interactive elements, like links, buttons, and forms, are keyboard navigable. This is important for users who cannot use a mouse or touch screen.
  • Logical Focus Order: Set a logical focus order that follows the visual flow of the page using HTML and tabindex, ensuring the focus indicator is always visible.
  • Skip Links: Provide “skip to content” links to help keyboard users bypass repetitive navigation elements.
Form Accessibility
  • Labels and Instructions: Each form field should have a visible label with clear instructions and examples. Limit the use of placeholder text.
  • Accessible Error Messages: Error messages should be informative and use ARIA live regions (aria-live=”polite”) to announce errors to screen readers.
  • Field Validation: Implement on-the-fly form validation with feedback that sets the error focus automatically to the problematic field.
Testing and Reporting
Manual Testing
  • Supplement automated testing with manual checks, focusing on keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and mobile accessibility.
Automated Testing Tools
  • Lighthouse Tool: Use this for QA Alpha reports to ensure high accessibility scores before sending the site to clients.
  • AccessibilityChecker.org: Check site performance after going live to maintain good accessibility scores.
Ongoing Audits
  • Regular accessibility audits ensure your site conforms to the latest standards, whether WCAG 2.1 or the upcoming WCAG 2.2.
Our Perspective

At Sonnet, implementing WCAG best practices has significantly improved the inclusivity and usability of our clients’ websites. By incorporating accessibility from the planning stages through to development and testing, we’ve been able to deliver websites that not only meet regulatory requirements but also provide a better user experience for everyone. Our agency partners have also reported increased user engagement and satisfaction, demonstrating the real-world benefits of prioritising accessibility.

Conclusion

Enhancing your WordPress site with WCAG best practices is essential for creating an inclusive and user-friendly online experience. By planning for accessibility, incorporating it into your design and development processes, and conducting thorough testing, you can ensure that your website is accessible to all users. This approach not only benefits users with disabilities but also improves overall site performance and user engagement.

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