10 key steps to ensure your WordPress site meets web accessibility guidelines

Ensuring that your WordPress site is accessible to all is not just a courtesy; it’s a necessity. Imagine a website that shuts its doors to users with disabilities, leaving behind a trail of missed opportunities, frustrated visitors, and potential legal woes.

Web accessibility is more than just a buzzword; it’s a fundamental principle that empowers users of all abilities to navigate, engage, and interact with your content seamlessly. From choosing the right theme to testing with precision, each step toward accessibility is a leap toward a more equitable digital world.

If you’re currently on WordPress or potentially looking to build a website that meets web accessibility on WordPress, we’ll guide you through 10 steps you can take to ensure that your WordPress site meets web accessibility guidelines. We’ll uncover the strategies and best practices to transform your site into an all-inclusive user experience.

Key Takeaways

• Choosing an accessible WordPress theme is the foundation for an inclusive website design.
• Using descriptive link text improves navigation for all users, especially those using screen readers.
• Providing text alternatives for images ensures that visually impaired users can understand the content.
• Enabling keyboard navigation allows users to navigate the site without a mouse, benefiting individuals with motor disabilities.
• Creating accessible forms enhances user experience and ensures all visitors can interact with the site.

1. Choose accessible themes

Selecting an accessible theme is the foundation of creating a WordPress site that is usable by people with various disabilities. Ensure the theme you choose is labeled as ‘Accessibility Ready’ on the WordPress theme repository, which indicates it adheres to accessibility standards.

• Look for themes with semantic HTML structure.
• Verify that the theme supports keyboard navigation.
• Check for proper contrast and color settings.

Here is a list of WordPress sites that may help provide you with a better foundation for meeting web accessibility guidelines:

• Period: A highly regarded free WordPress theme suitable for small businesses and blogs. It is known for its accessibility features like a fully responsive layout.
• Icelander: An accessibility-ready WordPress theme ideal for e-commerce, optimized, flexible, and reliable. It complies with WCAG guidelines and offers easy drag-and-drop page building features.
• Cindy: Another accessible WordPress theme suitable for websites serving the local community. It provides predefined page layouts, high contrast text ratios, and is fully keyboard accessible.
• Polyclinic: This theme is designed for medical and healthcare websites, exceeding basic accessibility requirements and providing customization tools.
• Salient: A multipurpose theme that is accessibility-ready, offering various demos for different businesses and integrating social sharing functions to enhance marketing strategies.
• X: A versatile theme builder with unique demos for a variety of businesses, premium plugins, widgets, and shortcodes to enhance performance. It is highly responsive and compatible with bbPress.

Remember, an accessible theme not only helps users with disabilities but also improves the overall user experience for all visitors.

2. Use descriptive link text

Using descriptive link text is crucial for web accessibility. Visitors should be able to understand the context of a link without needing additional information. This practice aids screen reader users and those with cognitive disabilities.

• Avoid generic phrases like ‘click here’ or ‘read more’.
• Use meaningful text that conveys the link’s destination or function.
• Ensure that the link text makes sense out of context.

Descriptive links help users navigate your site more effectively and improve the overall user experience.

Remember, each link should make it clear what to expect when it’s activated. This not only helps users with disabilities but also benefits everyone by providing a clearer and more informative navigation experience.

3. Provide text alternatives for images

Ensuring that all images on your WordPress site have text alternatives is crucial for users who rely on screen readers. Text alternatives describe the image content and function, allowing users with visual impairments to understand the context and message conveyed by images.

• Use the alt attribute to add a descriptive text to each image.
• For purely decorative images, use an empty alt attribute (alt="") to indicate that the image should be ignored by screen readers.
• When using complex images like charts or infographics, provide a detailed description nearby or link to a page with the full description.

Remember, text alternatives are not just for compliance; they enhance the user experience for everyone by providing a textual backup when images fail to load.

By following these practices, you can make your WordPress site more inclusive and accessible to a wider audience.

4. Enable keyboard navigation

Ensuring that your WordPress site is navigable via keyboard is crucial for users who cannot use a mouse due to physical disabilities or preferences. Keyboard navigation includes the ability to move through menus, widgets, and forms using keys like Tab, Enter, and Arrow keys.

• Use the Tab key to test if all interactive elements are reachable.
• Ensure that the Enter key activates links and buttons.
• Check that form fields are accessible with the Tab key and that users can submit forms with the Enter key.

It’s important to provide visual cues, such as focus indicators, so users can easily track their navigation progress.

Remember to check for keyboard traps, where a user’s keyboard focus can become stuck in a loop. Regular testing on different browsers and devices will help maintain keyboard accessibility as your site evolves.

5. Create accessible forms

Ensuring that forms on your WordPress site are accessible is crucial for users with disabilities. All form fields should have clearly associated labels, which help screen readers to interpret the form’s purpose and structure. Additionally, include instructions and error messages that are easy to understand to prevent and correct mistakes.

• Use fieldsets and legends for grouping related form elements.
• Provide clear instructions at the beginning of the form.
• Implement error handling that guides users to correct mistakes.

Here some form plugins for WordPress that come with built with web accessibility features:

• Formidable Forms: Formidable Forms is ranked as the best ADA-compliant form builder, scoring 0 errors in accessibility testing. It offers WCAG forms that are great for screen reader users and provide high-contrast text and simple keyboard navigation.
• WPForms: WPForms is another popular form builder that is ADA-compliant and offers accessible forms. While not ranked as the best in terms of accessibility compared to Formidable Forms, it still meets web accessibility standards.
• Gravity Forms: Gravity Forms is a widely used form builder plugin in WordPress. It has made improvements in accessibility but was found to have 2 errors and 24 alerts during accessibility testing, mainly related to form control labels.

Remember to design forms that can be navigated using a keyboard alone, as this is essential for users who cannot use a mouse.

Testing your forms with real users, including those with disabilities, can provide valuable insights into their accessibility. Make adjustments based on feedback to ensure that your forms are inclusive and user-friendly.

6. Ensure color contrast compliance

Ensuring that your WordPress site has sufficient color contrast is crucial for users with visual impairments. High contrast between text and its background makes it easier for users to read and engage with your content.

• Use tools to check contrast ratios.
• Aim for a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text.
• Larger text should have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1.

Here is a list of some free and paid tools you can use to check color contrast:

• WAVE: Developed by WebAim, WAVE is a web accessibility evaluation tool that checks for various elements of a website, including color contrast, in accordance with WCAG recommendations.
• Contrast: A macOS tool designed for evaluating color choices for WCAG compliance, providing instant feedback without disrupting the design workflow.
• Stark: A plugin software available on Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch that ensures typography and font size meet accessibility guidelines, including color-blindness simulations.
• Tanaguru Contrast-Finder: A web-based tool allowing users to input foreground and background colors to monitor contrast ratios and choose desired minimum contrast ratio scores.
• Accessi: A comprehensive web accessibility evaluation tool powered by Equally AI, similar to WAVE, providing detailed reports on contrast ratios for WCAG compliance.
• Color Safe: A web-based tool generating color palettes adhering to WCAG contrast ratio standards based on user inputs like background color and font details.
• Spectrum: A free Chrome extension assisting in designing for color-blind users by simulating various types of color vision deficiencies.
• Colour Contrast Analyser: A desktop application by The Paciello Group that allows users to analyze colors on their screen with a color picker and shows contrast variations with different types of color blindness.
• Coolors: An online checker providing quick and easy contrast measurements without requiring downloads, featuring a “Click to fix” feature suggesting accessible colors.
• WebAIM Contrast Checker: Specifically designed for evaluating color contrast ratios, offering detailed reports and integrations with popular web development tools like WAVE.

Remember, color contrast is not just about text. Interactive elements like buttons and form fields also need to meet contrast standards to be accessible.

By adhering to these guidelines, you can create a more inclusive environment for all visitors to your site. Regularly review your site’s color palette and adjust as needed to maintain compliance.

7. Utilize ARIA landmarks

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) landmarks are essential for informing users about the organization and structure of your website. They help screen readers and other assistive technologies navigate your content more effectively.

• Use role="banner" for the site header.
• Assign role="navigation" to your main navigation.
• Mark the main content area with role="main".
• Footer should have role="contentinfo".

Ensuring that these roles are correctly assigned to the corresponding sections of your WordPress site can greatly enhance its accessibility. This practice allows users to quickly identify and skip to different sections of the page, making the browsing experience more efficient and user-friendly.

Remember to test your site with users who rely on assistive technology to ensure that ARIA landmarks are implemented correctly and are providing the intended navigation aid.

8. Add skip links

Skip links are an essential feature for users who navigate with keyboards, including those with visual impairments. They allow users to bypass repetitive content such as navigation menus and jump straight to the main content. This not only improves accessibility but also enhances the overall user experience.

To implement skip links effectively, consider the following steps:

• Ensure that skip links are the first focusable elements on the page.
• Make skip links visible when they are focused.
• Place the skip link target at the beginning of the main content area.

Remember, skip links should be easily reachable and visible upon focus, so users can find them without hassle.

Testing your skip links is crucial to ensure they work correctly across different browsers and assistive technologies. Regularly check your website to maintain accessibility standards.

9. Caption videos and transcribe audio

Ensuring that your multimedia content is accessible is crucial for users with hearing impairments. Captioning videos and providing transcripts for audio content are essential steps in making your WordPress site more inclusive.

• Captions should accurately reflect the spoken content and other relevant sounds in the video.
• Transcripts offer a text-based version of the audio content, beneficial for both hearing-impaired users and those who prefer reading to listening.
• Use embedded YouTube videos instead of self-hosted videos since YouTube includes accessibility compliance out of box.

Remember, captions and transcripts also improve the SEO of your website by making the content searchable and indexable by search engines.

It’s important to regularly check that all multimedia content remains accessible as your site evolves. This includes updating captions and transcripts if the original content changes.

10. Test with accessibility evaluation tools

Testing your WordPress site with accessibility evaluation tools is a critical step to ensure compliance with web accessibility standards. Automated tools can help identify issues that may not be immediately apparent, providing a baseline for improvements.

• Use tools like WAVE or axe to perform initial scans.
• Manual testing should complement automated checks.
• Engage users with disabilities for real-world feedback.

Additionally, there are a variety of WordPress plugins that have specific testing and assistance tools to help you.

• WP Accessibility: This plugin helps modify your website to meet accessibility criteria and generates reports with instructions to address issues.
• UserWay: Offers AI-assisted scanning to monitor accessibility problems without changing website code, with a free widget for basic adjustments.
• One Click Accessibility: A free plugin that enhances website accessibility without coding knowledge, providing various features.
• Accessibility Widget by UserWay: A tool that can make your site more compliant with standards like WCAG 2.1 and ADA.
• WP ADA Compliance Check Basic: Scans for accessibility problems without altering the site, offering a free version with limitations and a paid version for more features.
• Accessibility Widget: Adds an accessibility sidebar widget allowing users to adjust text size on the screen easily.
• wA11y: Includes tools like TOTA11Y and WAVE to evaluate and improve site accessibility, making it easier to incorporate into WordPress workflow.

Remember, no tool can detect all accessibility issues. It’s essential to combine automated testing with expert reviews and user testing to achieve the best results.

Accessibility testing should be an ongoing process, not a one-time task. Regularly schedule evaluations and update your site to maintain accessibility standards over time.

Conclusion

Ensuring web accessibility on WordPress sites is crucial for creating an inclusive online environment. By following the 10 key steps outlined in this article, website owners can make significant strides toward meeting web accessibility standards and providing equal access to all users. Embracing web accessibility not only enhances user experience but also demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity and diversity in the digital space. As technology continues to evolve, prioritizing web accessibility will become increasingly important, and WordPress users have the opportunity to lead the way in creating a more accessible web for everyone. If you’re looking for other approaches to meeting web accessibility, check out this read, meeting web accessibility guidelines: two approaches to consider.