Yesterday a little bird directed me to a conversation about accessibility on the WordPress Development Updates blog.
For those unfamiliar with “WPDevel”, it’s the blog for and by people on the WordPress core development team. It’s a good place to sneak a peek at what the devs are working on and what they consider important in the ongoing development of WordPress itself.
The main blog post, by WordPress core developer/usability expert Jane Wells, focuses on what will be considered part of the scope for WordPress 3.1 (remember, the most recent version to date is 3.0.1). However, if you scroll down, in the comments section of the blog is a discussion about accessibility updates.
As Rich Pedley notes, there are close ties between the WordPress dev team and GAWDs, the Guild of Accessible Web Designers. With this in mind, he raises the question about what accessibility features will be incorporated into the next version, which sparked a bit of discussion.
I should note that I’m a million miles away from being part of any discussion on WordPress development, but the conversation got me really excited. WordPress already incorporates some accessibility elements into the core design and default theme, and it’s arguably easier to add in additional accessibility elements in WordPress than in some other platforms. Even so, it’s nice to see accessibility continuing to be discussed at the top levels.
In particular, I was gratified to see Jane’s comment:
Accessibility patches will be reviewed and added anytime someone submits them (assuming they are up to par, of course). The problem is that very few people choose to submit accessibility patches. Accessibility patches welcome.
It sounds like there’s the will to make Twenty Ten (the default theme) and the admin sections even more accessible, which is awesome in and of itself, but it also sounds like they’re reaching outo the broader WordPress community for assistance.
More than anything, this debate offers a great opportunity for people who care about WordPress and accessibility. If they hear from WordPress users that accessibility is important to us, we might just see more features built into the core.
And that’s a good thing for everyone.
UPDATE: Since I wrote this post yesterday, there has been additional discussion on the wp-accessibility mailing list about modifying the Twenty Ten theme as well as creating an admin/dashboard area that incorporates more accessible features such as a different color scheme. Rich Pedley has already identified some areas that can be improved in the theme. I’m looking forward to seeing where these discussions go.
