Accessibility Ready Theme

  • Ran into a second situation where I am using a free theme that lists under the Accessibility Ready Theme filter and after getting deep into the development of the site learn that there are some things that are not accessible. In the first case, the theme developer recognized his error but rather than fix it, removed it from the Theme Directory. The latest one is related to a different the use of an image in the header and the image cannot be made accessible (add Alternative Description) without custom coding (if using the text in the header all is fine). The developer has indicated a willingness to do the custom coding for $25 which I am inclined to pay.

    This all makes me wonder if the Accessibility Ready review is effective or can ever be effective enough to “credential” a theme as fully accessible. I don’t want to make any more work for someone. But it appears we have a bit of a conundrum here…

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

  • The accessibility-ready review, first, does *not* credential a theme as being fully accessible. It means that it is possible to create an accessible web site using that theme, because it does not impose any automatic barriers (e.g., barriers that are automatically present when that theme is installed.) Testing all possible configurations and options is outside what the review is capable of doing. We can’t provide guarantees.

    Second, due to a lack of resources, we can’t keep up with updates to themes. So all we can really guarantee is that at the time the theme was initially released it met the requirements that were in place at the time it was released. If a developer asks for an additional review, we will provide it, but we simply cannot manage to review every subsequent release.

    We try and manage this as best we can, but please keep in mind that we do not provide any guarantees.

    Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    Even if resource was available to ensure that all themes are considered ‘accessible’ by the theme review team, that would not equal an accessible website. There is at least 1 other layer in a website that participates in the accessibility level and that is the content editor.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • The topic ‘Accessibility Ready Theme’ is closed to new replies.