Having your website accessible for those who have disabilities or need to use special software is a very important aspect of getting as much traffic to your site.
You will need to at least be compliant with the WCAG 2.0 Level AA if you are going to be working on making your site more accessible.
In some European countries, its also the law if you plan on doing buisness in that area. The United States currently has no regulation at the moment.
Chapter 2
WordPress is not accessible friendly from the start. You will need to develop it as you go along.
Its important to verify whether or not a plugin you install is accessible or not.
Even though the raw HTML can be neatly done, you can still have accessibility problems when you start integrating CSS and JavaScript.
Not all WordPress themes will be friendly to accessibility even those that are labeled as such.
Chapter 3
Once you select your theme, functionality and readability should be a prioritized in you designs.
Color contrasts can affect the visibility of text and other elements of your website.
The WCAG 2.0 requires a 3.0 color ratio for bigger texts.
On navigation menus its better to use a :focus rather than :hover since it will apply to the keyboard and a mouse.
Any non-text content needs to have an alt tag for screen readers. If there are any elements that are ornamental then you should have the screen reader bypass it.
Having a good HTML structure will help make navigating a website much easier for the impaired and give each element a meaning to them.
Chapter 4
Whenever you're going to integrate a plugin, it should be vetted to make sure it doesn't hurt the integrity of the accessibility.
ARIA - Accessible Rich Internet Applications are attributes that make complex UI more usable to screen readers.
Not all WordPress plugins can help with accessibility and they overlay on your code.
Chapter 5
Accessible content attempts to make sure that anyone with accessibility issues can be able to consume the content you create whether it's a visual, audible, or cognitive impairment.
Organization of your content is helpful for both the developer and the end user and will help locate any changes to make it easier to navigate.
Chapter 6
Automated accessibility testing has many limitations. It can detect issues, but cannot fill in or suggest alt-texts. Machines can look at the whole structure while user testing can detect the details needed.
The WAVE add on for Chrome and Firefox is an evaluation tool that can help you identify some of the ARIA elements.
WordPress: Building Progressive Themes with WP Rig
Chapter 1
Requires the installation of Composer and Node.js to work properly.
The old way of loading a JavaScript file is to put it at the bottom of the page so it doesn't bog down the loading time. With modern browsers you can load indivdual scripts async or precache/defer.
Async loading is when the script runs when the page is fully loaded.
Defer loading is when the script is runnind while everything else is still running.
