WordPress 4.1 and Accessibility

This week 4.1 “Dinah” was released. A lot of attention was given by the developers to improve the accessibility of the front-end, the Admin and the default theme Twenty Fifteen.

What has improved

Twenty Fifteen is the most accessible default theme up to now:

• The colour contrast complies with WCAG 2.0 AA;
• The main menu, including the responsive hamburger menu, is fully keyboard and screen reader accessible;
• ARIA roles and landmarks are added;
• The heading structure is semantic;
• Accessible “Continue reading” links;
• Alt texts of the thumbnails are meaningful.

Front-end improvement:

• Improved post/paging navigation template tags.

For the Admin work has been done for:

• The colour contrast;
• The Add Media panel;
• The Customizer.

A big thanks to all the developers and testers, who worked hard to get this done. And hopefully will continue to do so for WP 4.2.