Just like any other website, a WordPress-powered website needs to be accessible to your visitors. It might sound obvious, but it’s actually quite complex. Most people have heard of Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox, but there are plenty of other browsers too. Then we also need to think about accessibility for users with disabilities – in many countries including the UK, it is considered discrimination (and therefore illegal for companies) to create a website that doesn’t follow accessibility guidelines. Then we also have to consider smartphone users, tablet users and perhaps in the future smartwatch users.
And then there are computers. You might not think it’s important to keep machines in mind when building a website, but it is! Making sure your code is valid, optimised for search engines and can connect to other web services via feeds can make a big difference to your site’s traffic and overall performance. Let’s take a look at some key details.
Browser testing
Browser testing no longer means trying to make a website look the same in browsers with different functionalities or on devices with different screen sizes. It means ensuring that a person’s experience of a design is appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device. Using modern web design standards and tools often means that your website will not work the same way in older browsers.
Testing browsers on computers
We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers, including those made by Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), Microsoft (Microsoft Edge) and Mozilla Firefox. All versions of these browsers that are less than 2 years old should render the website in a broadly identical way.
We will also test to ensure Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 for Windows to ensure users get a satisfactory, but usually different, experience. If you want a different level of cross-browser compatibility, please let us know and we will include that specific detail in the project scope.
Mobile browser testing
Testing popular small screen devices is important to ensure that a person’s experience of a design is appropriate for the capabilities of the device they are using. We test our work in:
- iOS: Safari and Google Chrome,
- Android: Google Chrome and Firefox
We do not currently test Blackberry OS or Blackberry QNX, Opera Mobile, Symbian or other mobile browsers. If you need us to test with these, please let us know and we can specify it with you.
HTML site map
This is a site map for humans. It is generally considered best practice to include such a sitemap for easy access to all parts of the site. Depending on the navigation design, it may or may not be advisable to include an HTML sitemap – sometimes a website is too simple to justify using an HTML sitemap.
XML sitemap
A sitemap for computers. It tells search engines what’s on your site and how best to index it. Angry Creative will install a plugin that automatically generates and maintains an XML sitemap for the site as part of our basic SEO setup.
Validating code (W3C)
All HTML and CSS code produced by Angry Creative will be validated against the W3C validator. Angry Creative can guarantee that our own code will be valid. Plugins can sometimes cause invalid code, but this is beyond our control. However, all reasonable efforts will be made to ensure that there are no validation errors or warnings on the final site.
WordPress accessibility for humans
Angry Creative will follow WCAG (website accessibility) best practices as closely as possible to ensure that visitors with any kind of sensory impairment can still access and use the site. When using an existing theme, we will not change the accessibility within the theme unless specified as part of a project scope.
Feeds
WordPress has in-built support for RSS and ATOM feeds, both for all posts, category, tag and author specific posts and comments. These feeds can be used to link your site with other web services such as social media or newsletters as well as used in RSS readers.
Summary
At Angry Creative, we try to balance accessibility requirements with cost considerations. Unless your site’s specific requirements mean we need to pay extra attention to older browsers, we prefer to be forward-thinking and make use of modern technologies and standards to give your visitors (both human and machine) the best possible experience.
We hope this has been a useful guide to accessibility for WordPress sites – get in touch if you think we can do better, or if you have any requirements you’d like to talk through with us.