Accessibility suggestions for wordpress 2.0.4

  • Hi!

    I have recently deployed WP 2.0.4 for a small site. I value that the wordpress developers have made an effort in making sure a wordpress blog is accessible. To make it even better I have a few suggestions:

    1. When rendering a page tree with wp_list_pages a standard ul li list is created. All links to pages in this list have a title attribute repeating the name of the page. This may confuse screen reader users. The best way would be if no title attribute at all was present as it is likely that the page name istelf will be sufficient to describe the page.
    2. In the default theme, wordpress will add heading elements inside li elements in the page tree. This is bordering on being “overly semantic” as the ratio between semantic announcements and content is increased. Skip the heading elements in the default page tree rendering
    3. The TinyMCE instance in WordPress makes it difficult to create semantic content. The user is forced to edit HTML in order to add e.g. headings and tables. These features should be available by default. Strikethrough formatting should be removed.
    4. The button to indent text in the WYSIWYG editor creates a blockquote element. Change the iconography to something that resembles a quote if that is what the button is intended to do. If indentation is intended, use CSS isntead of the blockquote element.
    5. Inserting images into a post is simple. However, if I add an image and don’t provide an alt-text WordPress will insert the name of the image file as an alt-text. This is not a good alt-text. The alt attribute should be empty if no text is entered.

    With these suggestions I believe that WordPress would be a much better blog tool and contribute to the semantic web in a much better way.

    Regards,

    Peter, https://www.standards-schmandards.com

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • To be completely fair, some of us would prefer that some of the above suggested be made optional rather than removed altogether. Some of us still need title attributes for links, strikethrough format, blockquote tags (rather than a CSS alternative), …

    I could agree with number 5 — so I edited the WP code to add a blank alt tag instead (as it is my personal preference).

    Thread Starter peterkz

    (@peterkz)

    Nitallica,

    I would be interested in knowing more about:

    When would you need title attributes with values identical to the page name?

    Why would you need to use the blockquote tag instead of CSS for indenting purposes?

    1.) When I use images for page listings instead of text. I personally prefer ‘title’ to ‘alt’.

    2.) It’s easier to teach non-*HTM users to hit the blockquote button on the quicktags bar rather than explain why it’s better to use CSS (something completely unfamiliar to most of them).

    (Granted I use my style.css to completely control the visual display of all blockquotes)

    Thread Starter peterkz

    (@peterkz)

    Nitallica, why do you prefer title instead of alt? The alt attribute is better understood by screen readers and other tools. I guess this much be more valuable than your personal preference?

    Non-HTML users would be better of using the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor instead of the quicktags editor. In the WYSIWYG editor it doesn’t matter to the end user what underlying code it creates. If you press the indent button it should add proper markup with css to indent text instead of inserting a blockquote element.

    – I can’t argue against that, except that it is my own preference, and also because I use the title tag on pretty much everything else (not just images). I’m the designer, it’s my site, I’ll write it my way. ??

    – Because the same users that would want access to the WYSIWYG editor also want to make use of RunPHP which requires the manual/text editor instead. (I know, I know, that makes no sense, but I have such a user on one of my sites!)

    For what it’s worth: as I see it, WordPress is fine the way it is right now, and I am a firm believer in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” mentality.

    That said, I am all for trying out new things and improving an already great product, but I would hope that the WP dev team would keep in mind that something to be removed might be missed by their users.

    Nitallica wrote: I could agree with number 5 — so I edited the WP code to add a blank alt tag instead (as it is my personal preference).

    I found this topic looking for a way to have empty image alt tags when no title is inserted. Can you tell me how you edited the WP code? Thanks a lot.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • The topic ‘Accessibility suggestions for wordpress 2.0.4’ is closed to new replies.