Accessibility tools

WordPress doesn’t have an authority on this and nor is WordPress a company. What the core team at WordPress try to do is meet the W3C criteria for accessibility. WordPress probably follows the ATAG guidelines, but I think you ought to look at WCAG instead.

The W3C provide good documentation for WCAG (Web Content Authoring Guidelines) including the reasons behind criteria and how to achieve and test them. https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag

Thanks for the reply.

I will have a look on w3c and see if they say anything specific about the js “accessibility tools” as mentioned above.

Here is the underlying principle for the text resizer tools: https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-scale.html

Note that the text-resize tool solution is just one of many.

A general answer to the first part of the question (leaving out the WP position on this):

Most users who have need of adjusting contrast, resizing text, even hearing the text of a web page spoken aloud, already have tools to offer that.

As such, some of these tools offer features the user already has baked into his/her browser or OS, but they offer it in different ways with different interfaces and potentially conflicting (with the user’s set-up) techniques.

If you follow WCAG, for example, you have no need for a text resizer since the user can do it right in the browser. If you are careful on your use of background images then you may be in good shape for Windows High Contrast Mode (which also offers media queries). If you make sure you always have text alternatives for all your elements (SVGs, images, animations, etc.) then you have no need for a text alternative.

And so on.

As the author of WP Accessibility, my official position is that you shouldn’t use the accessibility toolbar. It is only in the plugin at all because there are rare cases where it could be vaguely useful and because it is frequently demanded by people so that they can provide a visible indicator that they’re doing something about accessibility (theater of accessibility, if you will).

The team doesn’t have an official view on this, but in general prefers solving the problem (small fonts or low contrast) by fixing the site rather than by adding the ability to choose an alternate view.

Thanks for replying Joe,

That’s very useful. I agree with you, the only thing is that a few years ago we had some user testing done on a site, by people with low vision issues, and they were in fact pleased to have accessibility tools on the site we were building. If I remember correctly, one of them said that although they knew how to use browser controls to alter the appearance of the page, it was quicker and more convenient to have them within the page itself. They were also of the opinion that a lot of low vision users still did not know how to customise their browser view, which surprised me.

So I still think that there may be some use for these kinds of tools on sites that have a large number of low vision users, but that in most cases this is outweighed by the clutter.

Also, as you say, if nothing else it shows clients that you are taking accessibility seriously!

It is easier to use tools on the site *if* they are necessary – that’s why the optimal choice is to design the site so that they aren’t necessary. But the purpose of WP Accessibility (mostly) is to patch themes that have problems with accessibility when there’s no budget or time available to actually fix the theme. So, it can be useful. But it shouldn’t just be used by default, as it may not be necessary or helpful.

I’ll bear that in mind, thanks. I do aim to make sites that are accessible by default – using the plugin was meant to reinforce accessibility rather than compensate for faulty code, but maybe I don’t need it that much after all. I will need to take a closer look. Anyway, I think I have a much clearer position on accessiblity button tools now.

Is it a legal obligation to make sites accessible?

@fangimagic, I’m sorry we can’t discuss legal matters here. It is true that some countries use policies to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities, but we can’t go into specifics – nor is it relevant to this topic.