These is the bi-weekly notes for the Accessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting that happens on alternate Thursday in #accessibility. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.
📣 Announcements
Working Group Updates
1. WordPress Core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and Block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor
- WordPress Core has entered the Beta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. phase, and all remaining enhancements have been moved to WordPress 7.3. The focus is now on bug fixes, with around 20 tickets still open, most of which have patches and are progressing well.
- An accessibility review of the new default theme is a priority. Joe Dolson will coordinate the review.
- Since the new default theme has been committed to SVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/., further changes will need to be tracked through WordPress Trac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.. The GitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository will be archived, and changes may need to be moved to Trac and PRs opened against the
wordpress-developrepository.
2. Accessibility-Ready Program
- Reviewing all remaining themes is taking considerable time. The team may proceed with the current review incomplete, leaving themes without completed reviews in the tag until their reviews are resolved.
- Joe has developed a plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. that automatically inserts a theme’s own block patterns while excluding unrelated and nested patterns, reducing duplicate testing and simplifying the review process.
- The plugin will be included and activated in the recommended InstaWP template. The testing instructions will also be updated, and the plugin will be made available for those using other testing setups.
- With this change, template parts will no longer need to be tested separately on the block patterns page, as they should already be covered when testing the relevant pages.
3. Documentation About Web Accessibility
Open Floor Discussion
Team Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. Roles for 2026–2027
- @krupajnanda expressed interest in continuing as a Team Rep for another year and received support from Joe Dolson and Rian Rietveld.
- The team discussed whether to bring in a second Team Rep. Krupa is comfortable continuing independently if needed but emphasized that anyone taking on the role should remain actively involved and follow through on their responsibilities throughout the term.
- The team agreed that consistency and communication are essential. Since these are volunteer roles, stepping down when circumstances change is acceptable, provided the person communicates rather than becoming inactive without notice.
- There is no immediate need to appoint a second representative; the decision can be revisited later if additional support is needed.
- @muddassirnasim’s continuation remains unconfirmed. Joe will treat the lack of a response by the end of the month as a tacit resignation.
Ipsum : New Default Theme
- Ravi Patel offered to help test the open Ipsum accessibility PRs –
- The team needs clarification on where the changes should be tracked, given the new default theme’s move into WordPress Core.
Thank you @joedolson and @rianrietveld for providing updates and thanks to everyone who joined and contributed to the discussion!
