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WordPress should deprecate themes — a modest proposal by Mike Schinkel
Personally, I have never found a theme that is 100% useable without some significant HTML+CSS customization and/or PHP/MySQL/Javascript customization. And even the best themes use approaches that result in sites that require a huge amount of time to maintain the content because the themer made easy coding choices rather than build functionality to allow managing content with less effort. Examples include using categories to group content where a custom taxonomy would be better, and a custom post would be best.

WordPress themes as they currently stand should absolutely be done away with, even though the concept of separating presentation from content is an excellent foundation.

Sepearating content from presentation might have been the original purpose of themes, but that definitely hasn’t proved to be the case in practice.

Put more succinctly, the law of unintended consequences strikes again.

As a general rule, I find that themes, (and I’m not including every theme developer or designer here, just lots of them), promise way more than they can ever deliver.

I can’t count the number of sites I’ve worked on over the years in which management of expectations with regard to what a client can do with a theme and what they can’t has played a significant role.

Add to this the complexities of customizing a theme so that it becomes accessible, (something required especially when there’s a lawsuit or demand letter or even just a desire to make the site accessible involved), and you have a recipe for more headache for the developer and the client than there should be.

There’s a reason I won’t touch anything from Theme Forest, which is admittedly the most extreme case but far from the only concentration of trashfire from a code standpoint that’s out there.

And I don’t see any of this changing until one of the least-modernized parts of WordPress, (the theme infrastructure) is gone.

If Gutenberg helps us get there, I’m all for it, even though I still think Matt should spend about three days without his mouse and monitor stuck with a screen reader and Gutenberg.

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A note by John Carson on #WordPress, #a11y, Gutenberg and the TwentyTwenty theme by John CarsonJohn Carson
Being a screen reader user, I find it very disturbing that more attention has not been given to accessibility #a11y. Just a thought; it would have been much easier and simpler to design and develop for accessibility before starting to code this project. It will be much more difficult to implement accessibility after the fact. Who made the decision to move forward with a project this large without accessibility from the ground up? In my opinion this is the most ridiculously moronic decision I’ve ever encountered!

I met John when I started working for Freedom Scientific.

He had already been with the company a long time, (ever since the days when it was Henter-Joyce and when Jaws 3.0 was new).

He taught me everything I know about screen reader internals, has likely forgotten more about screen readers and assistive technology in general than I’ve ever learned, and did a ton of the scripting work that still makes Jaws for Windows work with websites.

He retired in 2017, and started working with WordPress in 2019. So he can’t be targeted with the “just afraid of change” argument.

I’ve watched him test the TwentyTwenty theme with three different browser/screen reader combos, read through every line of the CSS, and I’ll watch him read through every line of the functions file and other associated templates.

And he was developing with Javascript before there were frameworks.

I’m not saying any of this because we’re friends or otherwise, I’m saying this because he’s earned the right to be listened to.

And yes, his post is pretty damning because this stuff should not still be happening on a project whose leardership continues to claim that WordPress is for everyone despite specifically refusing to put policies in place (accessibility) which are part and parcel of every successful accessibility effort.

Matt, I get it. Gutenberg has been a goal of yours since at least the final WordCamp San Francisco. I get that you and the rest of the Gutenberg team have worked very hard on it, and that you really are trying to move the web forward.

I also get that you’re probably tired of every accessibility advocate, in and outside this community, giving you crap about this stuff. Hearing that you’re not doing a good job, however politely, is not pleasant. It’s not even pleasant when it’s polite, especially in the Gutenberg case, because everybody’s essentially calling your baby ugly.

I can’t speak for anyone else who’s advocated for accessibility in this space, because I’m not them.

Speaking for myself though, I’d genuinely like to quit criticizing you over this, and I’m saying that as someone who has been and will continue to be one of your harshest critics for as long as it takes. No, I’m not forking WordPress and I’m not walking away.

Seriously, quit being so bullish about this. I have no idea why you are as opposed as you are to even the prospect of an enforcible, project-wide accessibility policy, and enforcing same, but setting policy goals regarding accessibility for a project this size, (or really any project), is required for any accessibility changes to be lasting and successful.

An accessibility policy is how you ensure that you don’t keep repeating the same mistakes.

Technical accessibility is the beginning, not the end of accessibility efforts. And if you really want to move the web forward while safeguarding its openness and independence, please do not carry on one of the worst aspects of the free software movement, the one that leaves whether or not people with disabilities are included as part of the “everyone” you champion up to developer and designer and founder choice.

We’re still fighting discrimination in the workplace, and we’re still fighting for equal access when it comes to the technology we use to do our jobs. But the beauty of WordPress and its community is that we can create opportunities for ourselves.“People of WordPress: Amanda Rush” published at WordPress.org

In order for everyone, including people with disabilities, to be able to create opportunities for ourselves, WordPress the project has to make accessibility a priority. The way that happens is through leadership making accessibility a project-wide goal instead of just something individuals work for and fight for.

Last time this became an issue, Web Accessibility Deathmatch happened. If we’re going to keep it positive, and prevent that from happening again, then things have to change and that change has to be led from the top down, since this is a project with a benevolent dictator.

Matt, please rethink your public stance regarding a project-wide accessibility policy.

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Long-Needed Date/Time Improvements Land in Core by Justin Tadlock
After more than a year and several WordPress updates, an overhaul of the core Date/Time component concluded. WordPress 5.3 will ship with fixes for long-standing bugs and new API functions.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The core Date/Time component is a rabbit hole which is not for the faint of heart, and I’m glad to see these changes coming to WordPress 5.3.

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Accessible Death – Songs by Joe O'Connor
I’m putting together this play list for my wake and writing about my life while I am able. Time will come when I won’t have the strength. I want to make sure that my daughter Siobhan ( born with severe intellectual disabilities) understands what is happening and that she feels included in the process. I’ve used some songs she will recognize. In this way she’ll hopefully feel included.

I’ll update this post later once I can manage to get my thoughts together so that the words I’d like to say while Joe is still with us are in some kind of order instead of a jumbled mess mixed with grief and swearing.

I’ll try to do it quickly. Hopefully there’s enough time.

If you don’t know who Joe is, he’s one of the original gangsters of WordPress Accessibility.

Through this connection he is someone very dear to me.

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Why I Have a Website and You Should Too by Jamie TannaJamie Tanna
A persuasive look at the many reasons why you should have your own website, and some of the benefits it will bring you.

This post has a lot of takeaways for non-developers and even non-technical people. You don’t need to be a geek to have a website.

Personally, I think it’s vitally important, for example, to use a website to maintain a record of all the free accessibility testing you do as a person with disabilities. While I’d rather that the “f*ck you, pay me” approach be adopted instead of every organization and its brother jumping on mailing lists and social media asking for free work from persons with disabilities, maintaining a record of all the free work you do that can be used later to complete the experience section of your resume is the next best thing.

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How To Big Up Your Theme With Options for Twenty Seventeen by Claire Brotherton
Released mid-2016, the Twenty Seventeen theme is still incredibly popular, with over 1 million sites using it. One downside is that it comes with very limited customizations compared to other themes.

This plugin appears to be an excellent option if you’re using the Twenty-seventeen default theme and don’t have the funds to hire a developer or designer to do customization work.

It never occurred to me to package customizer options for a theme into a plugin. I’m not sure why because I do this for custom post types and other theme-specific code snippets all the time.

The customizer is relatively accessible at this point, so I’ve begun using it more and more on my own sites instead of just leaving all the fun for my clients.

And the idea of packaging customizer options in a custom functionality plugin is one I’m definitely stealing.

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A New Era for the Genesis Framework: Recapping the Biggest Changes and How to Work with Them by Carrie Dils
It’s been roughly one year since WP Engine acquired StudioPress, the makers of the Genesis Framework. There’s been a lot of forward progress, but it may have left some people feeling unsure about how to work with Genesis or best take advantage of new features.

I’ve always loved the Genesis framework, and I still use it on client sites. While reading this post by Carrie, I began to think that those of us in the Indieweb community may quickly need to embrace blocks.

Yes, I know, that’s basically heresy, but I’m thinking this may need to happen sooner rather than later since Gutenberg development is pretty rapid, the accessibility issues are being fixed pretty quickly, and the end of 2021 will get here before we know it. Post kinds as blocks, for example, would probably be a lot easier to share across themes, as opposed to now, when themes either have to be forked and customized or created from scratch to explicitly support microformats 2.

Granted, you can have indieweb without post kinds, but post kinds is what enables people to truly own all of their content. And right now, there are only a few people doing the heavy lifting with regard to themes. That’s an untennable situation for a ton of reasons.

In order for this to change, it’s going to have to become easier for other designers and developers, (let alone users), to implement this stuff, and there are two ways that can happen. The first is WordPress as a project adopts all the indieweb building blocks. This would be the best solution, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. The second way is us adopting blocks on the model of something like the Automic Blocks plugin or similar, at least for the post kinds/microformats 2 part.

I suppose there’s a third way, where WordPress adopts things like webmention and the other open standards, and blocks for post kinds is the compromise.

These are all just thoughts, but the Genesis framework has somewhere around 250,000 users, it’s backed by its owning hosting company, and it really does provide an easy way for users to build sites, with some accessibility included. And I think expecting users to do the heavy lifting for themes just isn’t sellable.

There’s a lot of promise contained in Gutenberg and the whole blocks concept, including the up-ending of what is the current raging dumpster fire which is the WordPress theme ecosystem, (with some notable exceptions for some themes). I’m thinking we should go with the flow as best we can.

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Florida Judge Sanctions Serial Ada Plaintiff Alexander Johnson And Attorney Scott Dinin | JD Supra
Seyfarth Synopsis: Serious sanctions imposed on a serial ADA Title III plaintiff and his attorney should concern the plaintiffs’ bar.

This appears to have a little something for everyone, including a heaping helping of “you can’t fix stupid”. Emails? Seriously? They emailed each other and were explicit enough in the emails to prove that this was a scheme? I know I’m not really supposed to talk about the people who agree to be plaintiffs of record in these cases, (or at least, it seems, that not many people are willing to bring that part of it up), but yeah, this gravy train appears to be coming to its final stop. At least, I hope it is. Note: If anyone else has posted about this angle of it, influencer or not, get in touch and I’ll be happy to link.

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What Tumblr Taught Me About Accessibility by Nic Chan
As someone who was a teenager during its peak, Tumblr has had an undeniable influence on my life. Like many people my age, my first exposure to the concepts of ‘accessibility’ and ‘ableism’ was through Tumblr. In sharp contrast to the web accessibility community, where we often focus on technical details, meeting clear criterion and legal compliance, Tumblr’s disability community focused on more human facets of accessibility by practicing accessibility in a variety of creative ways. Even when presented with access barriers created by the inaccessibility of Tumblr as a platform, Tumblr as a community has found unique ways to support disabled users. As developers, we need to learn from our mistakes by finding out where our users compensate for our deficiencies, and learn from how disabled communities support themselves.
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Domino’s asks the Supreme Court to shut down a lawsuit requiring its website be accessible to blind people by Nick Statt
Domino’s is arguing the requirements would be inconsistent and costly

One more time for the folks in the back. Accessibility guidelines and a metric ton of supporting documents with examples along with easily findable mailing lists with every accessibility practitioner on the planet providing help and advice on accessibility for free every single day have been around now for twenty something years. There’s also Twitter, where those same practitioners have been providing free help for something like ten years every day. This isn’t hard. And a multi-million-dollar company to complain about paying $38,000 to fix their website so that it’s accessible to everyone is crap. Dominos wouldn’t be charged $38,000 to fix things if they had, wait for it, built accessibility in from the ground up. Stuff like this is why people with disabilities are practically in “sue them all and let God sort it out” mode. We shouldn’t have to keep asking politely that large corporations not violate our civil rights. “Please Sir, may I use your site?” I’m not sure if this will make it to the Supreme Court, it can decline to hear this case. I’m not even sure if the court ruling in favor of the plaintiff in this case is likely. But if it has to come to this, then so be it.

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How to Use Brand Names on Your WooCommerce Store by Bob Dunn
Let your customers search your products using the brands that you resell on your WooCommerce online store with lists an widgets.

This site continues to be an excellent resource for user-centered WooCommerce information. wooCommerce is a very powerful, and very complex plugin, and Bob does a great job highlighting extensions and providing instructions for using those extensions as well as the plugin itself in clear, easy-to-read language. Bookmark his site and check back often if you run your own store.

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Facebook's Image Outage Reminds Us How Bad Social Media Accessibility Really Is by Kalev Leetaru
Facebook’s brief image outage earlier this week exposed the general public to just how bad accessibility really is in our modern visual-first social Web. While governments and the technology community are investing heavily in AI bias, they care little about accessibility bias.

I don’t use Facebook very much these days, so I heard about the media outage from the outside. And yes, while there have been improvements, and while I’m not placing blame on Facebook’s accessibility team, the accessibility isn’t great even when the AI so-called alt text functionality is working. The best alt text is text which exposes the context of the image being described, and this is down to content creators. This incident is a prime example of why accessibility advocates and consumer organizations should not be using Facebook as their primary distribution platform. If you must use something like Facebook, then you have a responsibility to make the content you host there as accessible as you can by learning how to add alternative text to your images and, (if you’re using Facebook Live), to transcribe that content and host those transcriptions somewhere else until you can make arrangements to use either a different third-party platform or your own platform, otherwise known as your own website.

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I Am Cookie Dough by Allie Nimmons
I was always told I had to go to college. I was “gifted” so learning came easy and I enjoyed it.  From ages 6 to 18, I went to competitive accelerated schools designed to churn out college students. It was a narrow path I’d been set on, without encouragement to explore beyond.

These posts are often times the highlight of my week.