wA11y – The Web Accessibility Toolbox

wA11y is a WordPress plugin that provides a toolbox of resources to help you improve the accessibility of your WordPress website.

If you would like to contribute to the plugin, or report issues, please go through the wA11y Github repo.

What Does “wA11y” Mean?

“A11y” is the commonly used abbreviation for accessibility, since there are eleven letters between the “a” and the “y”.

“w” + “A11y” is my abbreviation for “web accessibility”. #wa11y

What Is Web Accessibility?

Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites by people with disabilities.

Data shows 1 in 5 people have a disability. If your site is inaccessible, you could be excluding 20% of your potential users, customers, students, and more.

The foundation for good accessibility is great markup which also means that good accessibility can improve your SEO.

Accessibility Resources and Tools

The WPCampus community has a great list of accessibility resources and tools available on their website.

This resource is open-source and WPCampus would love for you to contribute. Visit the WPCampus Resources repo to learn how to contribute.

WA11Y PRO TIP: Take advantage of in-browser testing tools, like WAVE and HTML_CodeSniffer, to evaluate WordPress theme demos before you purchase.

Tools Included In wA11y

The mission for the wA11y plugin is to provide a plethora of tools to help you evaluate and improve the accessibility of your website.

If you would like to see any new tools added to the plugin, please create an issue in the wA11y Github repo and label it an “enhancement”.

Tota11y

tota11y is an accessibility visualization toolkit provided by your friends at Khan Academy. It is a single JavaScript file that inserts a small button in the bottom corner of your document and helps visualize how your site performs with assistive technologies.

WAVE

WAVE is a free evaluation tool provided by WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind). It can be used to evaluate a live website for a wide range of accessibility issues.

Filters

Filters provide a way for you to modify a piece of data inside the wA11y plugin. Learn more about filters.

Here is a list of the filters available for this plugin:

• ‘wa11y_settings’
  • Allows you to change the plugin settings
  • Passes 1 argument: the default settings
• ‘wa11y_wave_url’
  • Allows you to change the URL passed to WAVE
  • Passes 2 arguments: the default URL and the post object (if defined)
• ‘wa11y_load_tota11y’
  • Allows you to pass a boolean to define whether or not the tota11y tool should be loaded
  • Passes 2 arguments: the default setting and the plugin’s settings
• ‘wa11y_load_wave’
  • Allows you to pass a boolean to define whether or not the WAVE tool should be loaded
  • Passes 2 arguments: the default setting and the plugin’s settings