WordPress back end is not accessible

[jhodgdon]

The WordPress back end violates several WCAG accessibility guidelines, so it cannot be considered accessible to people with disabilities.

Guidelines: ​http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/

Not being an accessibility expert, I am not sure of all of the violations. But guideline 6.3 states "Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page."

This means that you should be able to do all functions in the WP back end with JavaScript disabled.

As of 2.8-bleeding [11148], there are several things you cannot do with JavaScript disabled:

1) Upload and attach media to a post. You can upload media in the Media section, but the media upload section of the post edit screen is missing without JS, and I see no way to attach it to a post.

2) Add tags to a post or change which tags are on a post. The tags section is totally blank without JavaScript. (It could at least have the default plain-text field that is there behind the scenes and hidden).

[jhodgdon]

Just a note that the "works without JS" guideline is Priority 1, meaning "A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents."

[ryan]

See also #9445

[demetris]

Color contrast is also an issue in some places. Most instances are borderline, but some are striking, like the orange “Pending” on index.php: its contrast is 1.88:1, while WCAG 2.0 (​http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ — published in Dec 2008) says the minimum is 4.5:1 (and 3:1 for large text).

(I had opened a ticket about that blinding orange, but it somehow slipped into 2.7.)

Gez Lemon has a nice “Firefox extension that reveals the colour contrast of all elements in the DOM”: ​http://juicystudio.com/article/colour-contrast-analyser-firefox-extension.php

[ryan]

I think the tags were broken when we added multiple taxonomy support. Will get them fixed up.

[rudolflai]

It seems that without Javascript the Wordpress backend ceases to function in many ways. For example, the insert posts page relies heavily on Javascript, for example the TinyMCE editor, all the things that require a modal JS popup.

[davesgonebananas]

Whilst I can see that you would want to maintain accessibility on a public facing web page, I don't believe these guidelines are meant to apply to web apps and/or administration functions.

Basecamp, for example, is one example of a really popular web app that doesn't work at all without javascript enabled in the browser.

Gmail will only work in "basic html" mode without javascript - and you have to figure that out for yourself.

[dwright]

Hmmm, while I don't want to disagree with someone named, "davesgonebananas", It does look like they are meant to apply to web apps and/or administration functions.

​http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-AUTOOLS/#ref-WCAG10
In these guidelines, the term "authoring tool" refers to the wide range of software used for creating Web content, including:

• Editing tools specifically designed to produce Web content (e.g., WYSIWYG HTML and XML editors);

...
...

• Tools for site management or site publication, including tools that automatically generate Web sites dynamically from a database, on-the-fly conversion tools, and Web site publishing tools;

If what you say is true, (I've never used Basecamp) It appears Basecamp does not conform to these accessibility standards and for sure it's not alone.

I believe though, that Gmail does conform.
"Gmail's basic HTML view now supports a majority of the settings available in the normal view."
​http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=64950

this is some interesting history though, ​http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/04/10/gmail-accessibility

In a quick, non-conclusive, non-thorough test, I was able to access/login/send email from Gmail with a non-javascript supported text based browser. (Lynx Version 2.8.8dev.1)

I cannot even edit a post in Wordpress (2.9) with the same browser.

Of course these are not real accessibility tests, just a casual observation.

[dangayle]

Replying to rudolflai:

It seems that without Javascript the Wordpress backend ceases to function in many ways. For example, the insert posts page relies heavily on Javascript, for example the TinyMCE editor, all the things that require a modal JS popup.

TinyMCE is a convenience script, not essential for editing a post. TinyMCE (The "visual editor") can't do anything that the html editor can't do, which sufficiently satisfies the "equivalence" part of the accessibility discussion.

[gormer]

What about Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG)?

​http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-AUTOOLS/

[demetris]

Version shows the version for which the issue was first reported. It must not be changed.

In this case I would also leave Severity as is: the ticket is followed by experienced contributors, including the lead developer, so I would leave it up to them.

[JohnONolan]

We are working on this with an accessible skin for the admin as a part of the UI group. If the severity was "major" then this ticket would have been resolved at some point in the 17 months since it was opened.

[demetris]

Speed of resolution is not an indicator of severity.

The most trivial bug can be fixed in seconds because it is something very simple, while something important may have to wait for months or years because it requires more resources than we can afford.

[edward mindreantre]

Running the admin UI through fangs (​https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fangs-screen-reader-emulator/) makes very little sense. This is what JAWS would [probably] read out:

Page has four headings and one hundred nineteen linksPosts ‹ Wordpress Trunk — WordPress dash Internet ExplorerList of fourteen itemsbulletLinkLink DashboardbulletbulletLinkLink PostsList of four itemsbulletLink All PostsbulletLink Add NewbulletLink CategoriesbulletLink TagsList endbulletLinkLink MediabulletLinkLink LinksbulletLinkLink PagesbulletLinkLink Comments bulletbulletLinkLink AppearancebulletLinkLink Plugins bulletLinkLink UsersbulletLinkLink ToolsbulletLinkLink Settingsbullet Collapse menuList endThis page link HelpThis page link Screen OptionsHeading level two Posts Link Add NewList of two itemsbulletLink All left paren one right paren vertical bar bulletLink Published left paren one right paren List end Search Posts colon Edit Search PostsbuttonCombo box Bulk ActionsApplybuttonCombo box Show all datesCombo box View all categoriesFilterbutton one itemLinkGraphicList ViewLinkGraphicExcerpt ViewTable with seven columns and three rowsCheckboxNot checked Link TitleLink Author Categories TagsLinkGraphicCommentsLink DateCheckboxNot checked Link TitleLink Author Categories TagsLinkGraphicCommentsLink DateCheckboxNot checked Link Hello world!Link Edit vertical bar This page link Quick Edit vertical bar Link Trash vertical bar Link ViewLink adminLink Uncategorized No TagsLink one two thousand twelve slash two slash seven PublishedTable endCombo box Bulk ActionsApplybutton one itemTable with one column and two rowsTable end Thank you for creating with Link WordPress . You are using a development version left paren three point four dash alpha dash nineteen thousand nine hundred fifty-five right paren . Cool! Please Link stay updated .List of four itemsbulletLinkbulletLink Wordpress TrunkbulletLinkbulletLink NewList endList of one itembulletLink Howdy, adminGraphic slash eeight hundred ninety-five fcseven eeight thousand two hundred ninety-six bone hundred twelve dbtwo fnine ftwenty-nine thousand four hundred fifty-three fdthree c?s equals sixteen and d equals http percent three A percent two F percent two Fzero.gravatar.com percent two Favatar percent two Fadfive hundred sixteen thousand five hundred three aeleven cdfive cafour hundred thirty-five accnine bbsix million five hundred twenty-three thousand five hundred thirty-six percent three Fs percent three Dsixteen and r equals GList end

Now close yer eyes and try to make sense of what was just read out to you.

[helen]

This ticket is way old and way general - I think at this point we are better served opening new tickets for specific issues, also keeping in mind that MP6 may be the best place to be patching issues involving CSS.