Accessibility Testing in WordPress

In this hands-on meetup activity, participants will use the Accessibility Checker plugin within WordPress Playground to scan a web page for accessibility issues. Without requiring any prior accessibility knowledge, attendees will learn how to directly fix three common problems—missing image alt text, incorrect heading order, and non-descriptive link text—inside the Block Editor. Finally, participants will conduct a manual test by navigating the page using only a keyboard to experience what keyboard-only and screen reader users encounter.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Identify Common Issues: Recognize at least three categories of common web accessibility issues, specifically missing alt text, incorrect heading order, and non-descriptive link text.
• Understand WCAG Compliance: Explain the meaning of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) conformance levels and understand why they are important for a WordPress site.
• Utilize Automated Scanning Tools: Run a scan using the Accessibility Checker plugin and correctly interpret the results based on current terminology, which includes “Problems,” “Needs Review,” and “Dismiss”.
• Resolve Issues in the Block Editor: Fix at least two of the identified accessibility issues directly within the WordPress Block Editor by following the guidance provided by the plugin.
• Analyze Automated vs. Manual Testing: Distinguish between the structural issues that automated testing can successfully catch and the context or usability issues that only a human can verify.
• Evaluate Keyboard Accessibility: Assess the overall accessibility of a webpage by manually navigating through its entire content using only a keyboard without the assistance of a mouse.