Web CommunicationBlogOpen Lab NotesWordPress Accessibility Day Open Lab Notes

WordPress Accessibility Day Open Lab Notes

Changes to the Accessibility Assessment, User Roles, and Login Procedures, WSUWP Gutenberg Accessibility, Images and Alt Decision Tree, and Headings

Accessibility Assessment, User Roles, and Login Procedures

Web Communication is moving to include Digital Accessibility procedures within its WordPress platform per the WSU policy (EP07) and procedures (BPPM 85.55). This will consist of updating the Web Support Tickets, adding accessibility roles to User Profiles, and connecting the OKTA login with the user’s digital accessibility assessment status.

WSUWP Gutenberg Accessibility

Use the Accessibility and Usability panel to check your webpage before using the Wave Tool linked at the bottom of the panel.

Note:

With the updated Web Support Tickets we will not be publishing websites when pages (published or private) with errors in the Accessibility and Usability panel.

Images and Alt Text Decision Tree

After the decision about images and alt text, the WAVE tool was demonstrated. There were two purposes to this demonstration, showing how to remove the icons on the webpage to just those related to images and evaluating the alt text to the page’s purpose.

Core Concept: Images

Related Resources

  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Images Tutorial
    This resource provides some helpful information on how to write alt text for different types of images.
  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: An alt Decision Tree
    Another tool to help decide which images need alt text.
  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Why is it Important?
    This provides some information on why alt text is important. It isn’t just for assistive technology. Alt text also helps people who are roaming on data or have limited wi-fi. The alt text will appear when the image does not.
  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Tips and Tricks
    • In addition to these tips and tricks is it important to know that assistive technology will read the alt text from start to finish. Unlike other types of text where someone can move forward or backward easily word by word, screen readers will read the whole alt text and the only way to hear it again is to go back to the beginning to start over. You are unable to listen again to a word or two within the alt text.
    • Adding a period at the end of the alt text is also important. The assistive technology reading the content will pause at the period in the alt text before continuing.
  • W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Complex Images
    We briefly touched on complex images such as charts and graphs. Besides this resource, we discussed the complex images of the Accessibility Role and Page Profile Page Name Section.

Headings

This discussion about headings looked at the WAVE Tool’s Structure tab to see how the page’s headings and their heading level and at the Details tab. All but the heading-related icons on the page were removed from the WAVE Tool to remove the ‘clutter’ from the page and see the headings.

Core Concept: Heading

Related Resources

  • HeadingsMap: A Chrome extension that shows the heading structure of a page. This heading map has more of an outline look to it which might make it easier to understand the structure of the content and how the headings levels help with that structure.