Finding accessible, responsive, free themes

  • Resolved clarer1

    (@clarer1)


    7 years, 4 months ago

    How can I find accessible and responsive themes? I have no funding either so ideally a free theme. If not, it would need to be cheap and include updates as WP updates.

    The theme search feature allows me to filter for accessible sites, though a couple I’ve looked at so far don’t mention accessibility in their details, so I’m not confident about which truly are.

    But there are no filters for responsive or free themes. (Or are all the themes in search free?)

    It will take me ages to check the details of all the themes that filter as accessible.

    What do I do?

    And/or does anyone know suitable themes? Tall ask coming up ??

    I’d like to have a menu and sidebar. I’d prefer to choose particular posts for the front page (maybe have to do that by stickies) and would really like to be able to put them in a grid.

    But I don’t have photos and don’t know how I’d get suitable ones. I’m not sure how I’d make text images/banners instead. But if the theme doesn’t have this option and if I found a quick way, that would do.

    I seem to remember seeing some (business?) themes that have a row or grid of key items/areas on the front page to draw the eye. But how to find accessible, responsive, free ones?

    I’d appreciate any help please.

    Thanks.
    Clare

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    The easiest way to find these is to visit https://www.ads-software.com/themes/ and select the Feature Filter option. From there, check “Accessibility Ready” and any other filters you want.

    There used to be a filter for “Responsive Design,” but almost every single theme added in the past two years has been responsive, so that was removed. And, all of the themes there are free, since we don’t allow any commercial themes here.

    “Accessibility” in this context is unfortunately not a word that everyone understands yet (as I can attest from how many “I can’t access my site” threads I need to move out of this section), so it’s common for developers to tag their hard work as “Accessibility Ready,” but leave any mention of it out of the description.

    In order for a theme to be tagged “Accessibility Ready,” it must meet these strict requirements: https://make.www.ads-software.com/themes/handbook/review/accessibility/

    As for any further specifics not covered by the Feature Filter, like I said all of the themes here are free, so please feel free to try them out until you find one you like. ??

    Thread Starter clarer1

    (@clarer1)

    Thanks James,

    I hadn’t realised that almost all recent themes are responsive, hence not having a filter for it.

    So I only need to filter for accessibility, then check out more details in any I like the look of.

    I’ll check out that link. (Can’t remember off-hand whether it’s the one I’ve already seen, but it’ll help to have more information.) I’ve also seen a link to an accessibility tester so I’ll try that out as I overhaul my site. Had a quick look already and hope there’s a page there on how to interpret it. Different types of flags all over the place and I don’t understand the legend yet!

    Thank you.

    Clare

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    For accessibility testing, I recommend https://www.deque.com/products/axe/

    I find that it’s far more detailed and easier to understand than similar things.

    Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    Just make sure to manually check the validity of the results of automatic testers. It can be expensive to try to fix something in development only to find out it is not necessary or correct.

    Thread Starter clarer1

    (@clarer1)

    Thanks for the link to deque @macmanx. On a very quick look, that and the links look really helpful.

    And thanks for the WP links too.

    And thanks too @anevins. I was going to ask you “how to I check maunually?” as I haven’t a clue. James’ link leads on to a site explaining what to do, including solutions.

    I’m in the midst of re-writing major section of my site and will be swapping themes too. I’ve a small testing site so I’ll give the accessibility testing a whirl there before doing anything on the current site.

    Many thanks, both of you.

    Clare

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by clarer1.
    • This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by clarer1.
    • This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by clarer1.
Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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