Accessibility Team Meeting Notes: February 2, 2024

These are the bi-weekly notes for the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team meeting that happens on Fridays. You can read the full transcript here or see the full meeting schedule.

Updates from the working groups

NOTE: Only groups that provided updates are shown below.

Team Updates

General Working Group:

• @joedolson shared: #51870 is just pending second opinions. This removes a ton of placeholders and replaces them with real labels. Will hopefully be updated today.

Gutenberg Working Group:

@annezazu shared the following update for the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ Team: 6.5 related updates:

• Design draft shared for the highlight grid for 6.5.
• Section Styling: this work has been punted due to some blockers in resolving CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. specificity questions.
• Font Library: biggest work continues to be the Font Library: refactor REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. which was merged into Gutenberg following this merge criteria for this feature and had a quick PR to follow up on feedback. Outside of that, a discussion is underway around making the font library more discoverable.
• Pattern overrides: there are some current questions around how this features ties to the BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Renaming APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. and how the internal block ids are generated and used. Right now, we can find the block names through block ids, but we cannot do the same the other way around.
• Data Views: a recap of what’s planned and stable for 6.5 has been shared along with a PR to add sync status by default for Patterns, matching the current experience.
• Link Control: A bigger PR was merged for Implementing new UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. for invoking rich text Link UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. by requiring explicit activation before displaying the Link UI interface.
• Block Bindings: the experimental flag was removed along with an outline of next steps for Gutenberg RCRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge., BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process., and what’s out of scope for 6.5 (including when to backport). For out of scope, this includes a UI for users to add bindings. A ~4 min video walks you through the current status in trunk!

Outside of 6.5, an issue was opened for Media workflows around patterns that any media minded folks will find interesting.

• @joedolson said he’s really looking forward to the new link UI. It’s a significant improvement. @jeryj added that the interactions and states feel so much more consistent and predictable.

@chaion07 also shared this for discussion:

• The bug-scrub schedule for 6.5 release has been updated with the dates for the alpha phase. I’d really appreciate if we get this link shared during the meeting.

Media:

• Joe reported that there’s a major planning meeting for strategizing the new media library on Thursday the 8th, so that’s the biggest thing coming up. Did get a minor fix shipped yesterday.

Themes:

• Joe reported I have a new volunteer who wants to work on theme reviews & documentation; he’s going to touch base with @poena and @travel_girl to discuss.

• @travel_girl shared the first draft for the testing guideline. https://wp-coworking.de/draft-cheat-sheet-testing-for-accessibility-ready-tag/

Open Floor for Discussion:

• Joe is head down trying to finish some things before beta 1, which is coming up very soon now;
• @joesimpsonjr asks if anyone is attending WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia and Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.?
• Jeff Chi asked “Did someone answer to this request regarding the WordPress 6.5 release?”

NOTE: If you’d like to have a topic added to the agenda for our next meeting, please mention it in the comments on an upcoming agenda.