Stefano Minoia 4:25 am on January 8, 2022
Tags: 6.0,   

Accessibility Team’s goals for WordPress 6.0 and beyond

As the first Release CandidateRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. of WordPress 5.9 shipped on January 4, 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 is already gearing up for the next major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality..

The 6.0 development cycle details and the potential release date are yet to be defined, pending a decision about the schedule for WordPress releases in 2022. Still, WordPress 6.0 Alpha began on January 4, and Trunk is now open for business; also, in case there will be four major releases in 2022, early planning will be essential to get things included in time for each release, especially if we want to tackle large projects.

Because of that, the Accessibility Team wants to revive the tradition started with WordPress 5.6 to collect ideas and ask for public feedback about possible team’s goals, which is why you’re invited to leave a comment below and propose which accessibility improvements you’d like to see shipped with WordPress 6.0.

The discussion to identify major team goals will be held during the next weekly meeting, happening on Friday, January 21, 2021 at 17:00 UTC in the #accessibility channel of the Making 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/. (requires registration).

You’re more than invited to share your ideas, take part in the discussion and suggest what to prioritize. Just remember that, while the Accessibility Team is doing its best to make WordPress as accessible as possible, our team’s resources are limited and we’ll have to carefully decide what to focus on.
In case you aren’t aware, the Accessibility Team is organized into seven working groups, focusing respectively on Design, Documentation, Media, 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., 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/, and Themes. Such an internal organization has proven successful in keeping issues moving more quickly: as such, in the end, it’ll be up to each working group to decide what to work on and assess if a suggested goal can be completed by the 6.0 release or not.

If a certain goal isn’t selected for the 6.0 release, anyway, it might be reconsidered in the future and become a goal for one of the next WordPress major releases (maybe already in WordPress 6.1).

In general, trying to focus on goals that can be reached in a single release cycle is the best option to be sure that the work gets completed: if you think that solving a specific issue or adding a new feature may require work that spans over multiple releases, let us know and we’ll find together a solution to get this working.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below or in the #accessibility channel on Slack.

#6-0, #goals

Joe A Simpson Jr 4:26 am on January 8, 2022
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Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: January 7, 2022

These are the notes for the Make WordPress 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 occurred Friday, January 7, 17:00 UTC. You can read the entire transcript on our Slack channel and view the Meeting Agenda here. The meeting begins on time after the conclusion of the bug scrub, a welcome to new attendees with introductions, and rules for a family-friendly meeting.

Goals for WordPress 6.0 release

  • @ryokuhi suggested that with WordPress 5.9 Release CandidateRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. 1 released this past Tuesday and WordPress trunk is now the 6.0 Alpha, it’s probably a good time to begin defining goals for the next release; and
  • With WordPress 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8, we pubished post on the Make Accessibility Team site, asking for public feedback on possible major team goals for the next release. For the 5.9 release, we didn’t do this; after some discussion, now is a good time to publish this; and
  • This post, Accessibility Team’s Goals for WordPress 6.0 and Beyond, is a good starting point for new contributors.

Updates from Working Groups

  • Media Team @joedolson reported that this team is setting goals for 6.0 with a major focus being the redesign of the Media Library’s Image Editor.

Update from January 7 Bug Scrub

  • There are no open accessibility issues for 5.9, but we’re keeping an eye on the About Page;
  • There’s an open ticket milestoned for 5.9.1, which is either a 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/ or a Twenty Twenty-Two theme issue;
  • There are 9 tickets in the awaiting review queue; and
  • There are already 17 tickets milestoned for 6.0.

Open Floor

@sabernhardt requested at least one more reviewer for a developer note about theme-focused tickets (such as the toolbar scroll padding, the headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. image alt attribute, and the RSS widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. icon). Please reach out directly if interested. @ryokuhi closed the meeting with a quick reminder that next bug-scrub will be on Friday, January 14th at 16:00 UTC and the next Team Meeting will be on Friday, January 21st at 17:00 UTC.

#meeting-notes

alexstine 7:16 pm on January 5, 2022
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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: January 7, 2022

This is the proposed agenda for the 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 Friday, January 7, 2022, 17:00 UTC.

  • Goals for WordPress 6.0 release
  • Updates from working groups
    • Design
    • 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • 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 will be held on Friday, January 7, 2022, 16:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making 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/. (requires registration).

#agenda

Stefano Minoia 6:30 pm on January 5, 2022
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Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: December 17, 2021

These are the 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 Fridays. You can read the full transcript on our Slack channel and find the meeting’s agenda here.

Plans for meetings on January

After moving from having weekly meetings to having meetings every other week, it would be good for people willing to attend meetings to know in advance when they will be.

@joedolson suggested about moving to two meetings per month, so that it would be easier to add meetings in the meeting calendar. As this doesn’t seem to be too big of a change from having a meeting every two weeks, the team agreed to hold meetings on the first and third Friday of every month at 17:00 UTC. Bug-scrubs will continue to be held weekly on Friday at 16:00 UTC.

Updates from working groups

Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Documentation

@azhiyadev reported that there aren’t significant updates: she’s still going through the handbook and updating it. She’s also keeping an eye on the discussion for the WordPress 5.9 About page.

General

@ryokuhi reported that the 5.9 milestone on TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. is clear from tickets and that the awaiting review queue is almost clear, with only 7 tickets left.
13 tickets have already been milestoned for WordPress 6.0, no one with the early keyword.

Media

@joedolson reported that there are no significant updates from the media working group, which is mostly getting started in planning for WordPress 6.0 and monitoring for anything that needs to be fixed.

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.

@alexstine reported that he had opened a ticket on Meta Trac about using the image caption as alternative text for single images in the Photo Directory. @joedolson suggested to make clear that the picture description will also be used as Alt text or to create a new ticket to add a separate alt attribute when uploading the image.

Open floor

@ryokuhi quickly reminded that there won’t be either bug-scrub or meeting on both December 24, 2021 and December 31, 2021.

#meeting-notes

Stefano Minoia 11:00 pm on December 16, 2021
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Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: December 17, 2021

This is the proposed agenda for the 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 Friday, December 17, 2021, 17:00 UTC.

  • Plans for meetings on January
  • Updates from working groups
    • Design
    • 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • 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 will be held on Friday, December 17, 2021, 16:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making 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/. (requires registration).

#agenda

Joe A Simpson Jr 9:08 pm on December 10, 2021
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Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: December 3, 2021

These are the weekly notes for the Make WordPress 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 occurred Friday, 17:00 UTC. You can read the entire transcript on our Slack channel and view the Meeting Agenda here. The meeting begins after the conclusion of the bug scrub, a welcome to new attendees, and rules for a family-friendly meeting.

Update from Working Groups

As usual, we had a round of updates from the various working groups inside our Accessibility team.

Design Team

Design Team news was shared by @shaunandrews, listing some tickets and issues on TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. and GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ which might benefit from review from the team:

  • Ticket 54270 – About Page for 5.9 Release;
  • Ticket 54489 – Update the Dashboard Welcome Banner for 5.9;
  • Issue 37067 – Panel Color Gradient settings to use dropdowns; and
  • Issue 37075 – Load the template list in the site editor without page reloads.

@joedolson suggested that the priority should probably be the About Page for 5.9. Also, volunteers were requested to review these issues so that they’ll be handled. Joe volunteered for the Welcome screen update and possibly the About Page. @alexstine subscribed to the template selection issue to track its progress.

Documentation Team

@azhiyadev provided the update for the Documentation Team. During the week before the meeting, she had a further look at the handbook, checking for 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/. versions referred to and updating broken links. She asked a couple questions.

  • Should the handbook be converted to using the 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. editor?
  • In terms of pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party recommendations, are there any concerns regarding plugins that haven’t been tested with the latest version of WordPress? An example of one that is recommended is WP Libre Forms (referred in the handbook and tested up to WordPress 4.8.17).

Regarding the use of the block editor for the handbook, @ryokuhi expressed an opinion that we should stick with the classic editor for the handbook, as 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/ is still difficult to use for people with disabilities (in case editing is needed by those using assistive technologies). @shaunandrews added that having more people use the block editor and report any accessibility issues is the best way to improve the experience.

Regarding recommended plugins, those that haven’t been tested at least with version 5.7 should be removed. Joe is really uncomfortable recommending anything that shows evidence of being abandoned in the repository. This section needs to be updated desperately.

Also, @azhiyadev asked if there were any recommendations for web forms plugins to be listed in the handbook. Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms were suggested by @joedolson, but additional clarification was needed (regarding whether Gravity Forms’ WCAG 2.0 form field plugin is still needed). Finally, we should indicate that we have not conducted a full accessibility audit on these recommendations. 

General Team

At the moment there aren’t any accessibility tickets milestones for 5.9. For the news, 28 tickets milestoned for 5.9 will be included in the next release.

Media Team

This team has finished off quite a bit and is now planning for 6.0. Planning includes preparation for updating the search and filtering options in the Media Library.

Themes Team

@sabernhardt reported that Twenty Twenty-Two has an h1 related issue (Issue 233). @joedolson will comment on the issue and @ryokuhi stated we’ll probably need to discuss this issue again in the future to see if a review of the Accessibility-Ready guidelines is required.

Open Floor

There will only be a bug scrub on December 10th and our next team meeting will resume December 17th, our last gathering of 2021.

A reminder that WordPress Accessibility Day returns in 2022 and the first organizational meeting for this event kicks off December 16th. DM @joedolson for more details and an invitation.

#meeting-notes

alexstine 10:19 pm on December 1, 2021
Tags:   

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: December 3, 2021

This is the proposed agenda for the 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 Friday, December 3, 2021, 17:00 UTC.

  • Updates from working groups
    • Design
    • 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/
    • Media
    • 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.
    • 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 will be held on Friday, December 3, 2021, 16:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making 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/. (requires registration).

#agenda

alexstine 9:00 pm on November 19, 2021
Tags:   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: November 19, 2021

These are the 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 Fridays. You can read the full transcript on our Slack channel and find the meeting’s agenda here.

Team repTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. nominations

Last week, it was decided that the nominations for team rep would stay open until this meeting due to lack of nominations. During the last week, @joedolson nominated @joesimpsonjr, who accepted the nomination. @alexstine and @ryokuhi offered to keep helping out as team reps for the next six months, when the nominations open again. For the time being, the Accessibility team will have three team reps to help share the role.

Possibility of switching to bi-weekly meetings

The team agreed to switch to bi-weekly meetings instead of weekly ones, which will be especially useful near critical release dates. On the weeks when a meeting is not held, there will be an asynchronous sharing, especially from working groups referents. The bug-scrubs will continue to happen weekly and the meeting times and days will stay the same.

Upcoming changes to meetings

Open floor

@joedolson and @alh0319 are starting to plan the WordPress Accessibility Day 2022. A few things will be done differently from the first event.

  • The event will be independently organized, without involvement of the WordPress Community Team.
  • Planning and coordinating will happen in the WordPress Accessibility Day 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/.. Anyone who wants to be involved in the planning can send a Direct Message to @joedolson on the Make WordPress Slack.

#meeting-notes

alexstine 4:28 pm on November 17, 2021
Tags:   

Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: November 19, 2021

This is the proposed agenda for the 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 Friday, November 19, 2021, 17:00 UTC.

  • Team repTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. nominations are still open as there were no nominations last meeting. See the linked post for more information. Call for Team Rep Nominations
  • Possibility of switching to biweekly meetings
  • Skipping following meeting because of Thanksgiving
  • 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 will be held on Friday, November 19, 2021, 16:00 UTC.

This meeting is held in the #accessibility channel in the Making 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/. (requires registration).

#agenda

Stefano Minoia 10:00 pm on November 12, 2021
Tags:   

Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: November 12, 2021

These are the 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 Fridays. You can read the full transcript on our Slack channel and find the meeting’s agenda here.

Given that WordPress 5.9 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 will be released on Tuesday, November 16, 2021, @ryokuhi suggested to skip the point about the updates from the working groups and to quickly go through the other points, in order to allow more time to go through the tickets milestoned for 5.9 which weren’t discussed during the bug-scrub that had started before the meeting.

Team Reps nominations

As no one nominated either themselves or someone else for the role, the team agreed to postpone the deadline for nominations by one week: the new deadline is November 19, 2021. You can find more information in the Call for Team Reps nominations post.

@joedolson suggested the possibility of moving to bi-weekly meetings, to reduce the burden on Team Reps. This proposal requires extra discussion and will be considered during one of the next weekly meetings, when the team will be less focused on the next release.

Open floor

No topic was raised during open floor.

#meeting-notes