Session: The WPCampus Gutenberg Accessibility Audit

Date: Thursday, January 31, 2019
Time: 11:00 - 11:45 am (CST) (UTC-06:00)
Location: Room 1
Format: General Lecture Session

Session description

In the lead-up to WordPress 5.0, potential accessibility barriers in the new Gutenberg editor came under intense scrutiny. Accessibility is particularly important to those of us in higher education, and uncertainty around the accessibility of the editor makes upgrade planning difficult.

With this in mind, WPCampus commissioned an accessibility audit of the Gutenberg editor on behalf of our community. Although the audit is still in progress, this session will provide the community with a progress report on the work that has been done so far. We will discuss:

  • The RFP and vendor selection process
  • Our first-ever crowdfunding campaign to support the audit
  • Working with Tenon, our accessibility testing vendor for this project
  • The common issues and patterns that have been identified by Tenon so far

In addition, we will share information about:

  • How to read the full report once the audit is complete
  • How to attend a webinar hosted by Tenon that will explore the full report

Presenters

Rachel Cherry

Headshot of Rachel Cherry
Director, WPCampus

Rachel Cherry is the Director of WPCampus, as well as a freelance software engineer and consultant with with over ten years experience in back and front-end web development and digital design. Her main areas of focus include accessibility, higher education, and WordPress.

Sessions

  • General Lecture Session: The WPCampus Gutenberg Accessibility Audit

Brian DeConinck

Headshot of Brian DeConinck
Front-End Designer & Developer, NC State University

Brian DeConinck is a Boston-based front-end designer and developer with NC State University’s Office of Information Technology. As part of the OIT Design & Web Services team, he builds custom WordPress themes and plugins for academic and administrative units, helps run campus Multisite environments, and advises campus clients on their content strategy. In all of his projects, Brian is committed to universal design principles emphasizing accessibility, usability and user empathy.

Brian is also co-host of the WPCampus Podcast, where he gets to talk to interesting people about the interesting things they’re doing with WordPress in higher ed.

Sessions

  • General Lecture Session: The WPCampus Gutenberg Accessibility Audit