When building websites with WordPress, choosing an accessible theme is crucial because it provides the basic foundation for building an accessible website. However, a theme is just a part of the website, and it needs to be paired with a Page Builder to create the design of the pages. Choosing an accessible theme together with an accessible page builder will help to add content without any code changes – which is not very sustainable for building and maintaining large websites.
What is an ”accessibility-ready” theme?
The official Theme Handbook offers a few requirements for using the Accessibility-Ready tag, based on WCAG guidelines. These requirements apply to themes and page builder components.
- Keyboard Navigation
- Controls
- Skip Links
- Forms
- Headings
- ARIA Landmark Roles
- Content Links
- Repetitive Link Text
- Contrasts
- Images
- Media
- Screen Reader Text
- Not Allowed.
As the official documentation states, “Accessibility Ready does not mean that the theme meets the WCAG guidelines AA-level; it means just that the theme reaches the minimum standards that the theme review team has set.”
Things that are not covered by the requirements:
- Language of the page
- Focus and Input Control
- requirements related to text
- Responsiveness and 200% & 400% zooming
- Text requirements
- Animations, infinite scroll
- ARIA usage
The WCAG 2.2 guideline has many more requirements that can be checked on the official page.
Amber Hinds (Equalize Digital) tested a few themes & Builders and created a list of page builders based on a few accessibility checks they passed and Kadence WP had the most significant score (75.95%). Read the full WordPress Page Builder Accessibility Comparison report. I’ll write bout Kadence Accessibility features in another post.
So, using an accessibility-ready WordPress Theme doesn’t mean a website will be accessible—it is just a good foundation for building the structure of the new website, and the Kadence Theme is a good foundation in the WordPress ecosystem.
