Web Sight Createing for blind and visually impaired

Actually, Levi, the WordPress app is very accessible. How are you trying to create your site, ie, do you have hosting, are you creating the site on a local box, etc?

Since this might be considered at worst off topic, or at best tangential, I would be willing to contact you at the email you provided, if I have permission to do so.

yes, by default the newer versions of wordpress lost some of their accessibility when using a screen reader.

However, they did create an theme which you can use that is accessible. The developers of Wordpress realized that the new default theme wasn't as accessible as it should be so they created the accessible theme that we can use to bridge the gap until the default theme is more accessible. If you switch to the accessibility theme you should be all set to go with Wordpress.

--Pete

I think that I mis-spoke and the previous poster was correct. There may not be an "accessible theme" for Wordpress but maybe the Classic theme is what you want. I remember Wordpress telling me a long time ago that they were keeping around the classic theme so that people using screen readers could more easily create sites. The newer themes have you create sites by using "blocks" and draggin stuff around. That wasn't very easy to do with a screen reader so they kept the old design so that we could do our work too. I don't remember exactly how I configured this in Wordpress anymore, but now, instead of editing my site using the newer blocks and other tools, I can simply cut and paste text, enter HTML, and make it all work with my screen reader.

sorry I couldn't give you better info. It was a long time ago that some of these changes were made and I configured my site accordingly.

--Pete

Pete, I'm not trying to be knitpicky here, but you're mistaking the concepts of themes vs. plugins, & these are *very* different.

A theme governs the appearance of a WordPress site. A plugin in some way changes the functionality, either by adding functions or modifying existing ones.

WordPress has committed to accessibility at the AA conformance level of the WCAG 2.x standard in its core. Because plugins & themes are often built by 3rd parties, this does not apply, though they do encourage accessibility. It's a situation rather like the apps in the app store, many of which are created by 3rd party developers.

The new block (Gutenberg) editor actually is usable by screen reader users now, but the problem is there's very little training in how to do that. We're getting into the holiday season now, which is always a b-word for me, but perhaps I'll have some time after the 1st of the year to do something along those lines. Problem is that for me, that's my busiest time. We'll see.

For some reason, I did not see that this comment had been updated. Sorry for being late chiming in on this. Levi, I will email.

Also--& I hope I won't get in trouble for this--I have a WordPress email listserv yall might find helpful. Please go to www.freelists.org/list/wp4newbs & fill in the subscription form if interested. There are also training materials on https://www.wp4newbs.com, though unfortunately not for the Gutenberg editor. Please note that I don't receive financial remuneration for any of these services.

I do have a gentleman hosting w/me who uses a Mac w/Voiceover to administer his WordPress website, & he's doing well. I have also used the IOS app in this regard to work w/WordPress sites, & it is accessible. Do I recommend trying to create content w/a touch keyboard? Beyond no, but that's just me. Is WordPress accessible? Yes, but as w/all things, it does require at least some knowledge to use, and, again, as w/most if not all things, it takes more of that for a screen reader user.

Hello,

I've been working, for several months, on creating a website. I'm hosting my site from my own box, a late 2014 Mac mini, and using the abyss Web Server. For a web editor I use TextMate.

For me, writing the HTML itself isn't difficult - in fact, I've developed a nice little system of "snippets" in TextMate for various code blocks, templates for pages, etc.

My frustration comes with CSS, which I'm somewhat familiar with.

What I'm getting at is this:

Ok, so I write a page, link it to my CSS file(s), but when I view it in browsers - Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc, what I discover is that VoiceOver will tell me the attributes of some items, but not others. Items, for example, which are enclosed in "article" tags, live in tables, exist in some NAV blocks, buttons, etc, can be read by VO, but, as far as foreground/background color, alignment, font, etc, no dice. Same thing with menus (I'm using menus I created thru a wizard on https://www.thesitewizard.com/. These menus are actually links, embedded in lists, but, thru CSS, look like professional buttons. Additionally, in all browsers, it's generally impossible to see what foreground/background color you're using, except with links VO can see the attributes of. It's not possible to see alignment, etc. In short, unlike a word processor, it's difficult, at least to me, to design a website which looks correct, visually, because, in many instances, a VO user simply can't see foreground/background colors, alignment, fonts, line-spacing, word-spacing, etc, etc.

My big question for the community is, is there a Mac-based tool which will permit a totally blind, VO user, to see literally everything, from a stylistic standpoint, on a web page? If not, will Windows screen readers, such as NVDA, JFW (too rich for my blood), etc, do this? If so, I could purchase a cheap Windows laptop, get a screen reader going on it, and review my work that way. Do I prefer that? No, as I'm a dedicated Mac user. If, however, Windows screen readers will see everything a sighted person would see in the browser, then that would be an acceptable option.

The sort of tool I'm imagining would be a word processor, which would let the developer write out all the page, WYSIWYG-style, output the appropriate HTML, and also generate the relevant CSS code, in a separate file, which could be linked to your HTML page(s). Interestingly enough, way back in the OS9 days, there was an editor, Called Tex-Edit. Someone actually had written an AppleScript for that app, which would generate both the HTML, as well as an accompanying CSS file. Somehow, I doubt such an AppleScript exists for TextEdit, iText Express, etc?

Well, I hope I've given folks some food for thought, and if anyone has any bright ideas, suggestions, etc, I, and I'm sure many others, will be all ears!

Take care,

Ron

P.S.

Should anyone wish to contact me, off-site, regarding this topic, feel free to write to WebMaster@ganahee.com. TIA!

Ron, all browsers w/which I'm familiar have a "developer mode" which should let you see all aspects of the webpage, including css. In addition, there is an addon for NVDA called "web developer toolkit", but, quite frankly, I'm able to get as much or more info using either Chrome or Firefox in developer mode.

I've heard other folks say good stuff about Mystic access. My advice would be to check out the resources I wrote about yesterday, if only because it's free, & then go on to M A's course if it doesn't meet your needs. Sounds like a prudent use of resources to me.

I was putting the idea of creating my personal website on back burner until I saw this post.
This gives me a hope of creating a personal website of mine.
So, How to get started with this process?
Please send your suggestions keeping in mind the fact that the service, which you're recommending, should be accessible with screen readers as I'm a totally blind person.
Thanks

Folks, since this is really only peripherally Apple related, & since I don't wish to get into trouble w/the fine moderators here for posting off topic content, please consider subscribing to my mailing list at:
www.freelists.org/list/wp-4newbs

Fill in your email, select 'subscribe' from the dropdown (it is by default) & press the submit button. Then activate the link in the confirmation email you receive & you're golden. We can continue the discussion there w/o it being off topic.

A couple years ago, I posted this blog about WordPress and setting up a web server. It's getting out of date (I used WordPress v4.x at the time) and I might change some things if I were writing it new today (CloudFlare's free package includes SSL), but I think the blog might still be helpful. I suggest you jump down to the Using WordPress header and read some of the tips for navigating the WordPress backend and selecting a theme.

I hope that helps.

Hi all. Sorry to revive this dead thread, but it appears to be the most relevant discussion on working with Wordpress.

I've been working with the block editor and writing an article for AppleVis as I go. AbleTec, if you're still around, I'd love to have you beta-read the article and provide feedback. I tried subscribing to the list you cited above but received an error. If the list has moved, please provide instructions for the new hosting service.

The most significant block editor issue I've encountered relates to VoiceOver focus. It appears in both Safari and Google Chrome, which leads me to believe the issue is VoiceOver, but it could also be an inherent issue of the block editor itself. Navigating by block, using either up and down arrow or tab/shift+tab, VoiceOver focus seems to lag after repeated keypresses. The only workaround I've found is to press VO+F3 until VoiceOver describes the current object. As focus is lagging, it might take numerous presses before VoiceOver announces the current object accurately.

I've never used the block editor on Mac OS, but on Windows with NVDA, it is amazing. I would never go back to the classic editor. COmpletely uninstalled it. My html knowledge is basic at best, so I never got good at coding, and the block editor removes that need almost completely. ONly html I ever use would be just copy/paste, and they have a special html block, so I know the code will run right.

I tried more than 5 hours to get the front page template of a WP installation to work. But it's terrible. Blocks are inserted at the wrong position or the wrong blocks are inserted even though I pressed the return key on a text block, for example. Unfortunately, menus can be only customized by using the new block editor.
The approach itself is very good, you can actually edit all the templates like 404 page, front page, blog page etc very easily - but I found no way to do this reliably with VoiceOver on Mac.
Such an article would be very appreciated.

I think I posted about this on here previously, but https://www.dreamwidth.org is also a very good option that works well with VoiceOver. That is the platform I am using for my site. I have a free account there, but paid ones are also available. I haven't done this, but it is also possible to download and use their code to create a website. There is currently no publicly-available app, but I've had absolutely no issues on there related to accessibility. The devs are a small team but very responsive. I believe Dreamwidth even interfaces with Wordpress and vice versa. Hope this helps somebody out.

Might as well give a suggestion if this thread has been revived. I use Hugo to build my website.
https://gohugo.io/
It runs in the command line. You install and customize a theme and then manage all of your content with Markdown which can be handled easily in something like VScode.
This is the theme I use. It's had some a11y tweaks to make it friendly to screen reader users:
https://github.com/526avijitgupta/gokarna
Since it generates static pages, I also host it for free on Github pages. All I pay for is my domain name.

Google blogger is awesome, are used to post some my NRL news. I don’t know if it’s available on the iOS App Store though, maybe only android but surely you can use it on the Internet as well

Hello:
I Have my both host and domain, and am trying to build my website using wordpress.
however, am afraid that the final design will not be attractive for sited people.
I knew about Wix, so, what is your opinion? is it accessible?
I knew that this is so easy for sited people, but what about visually impaired?
Thanks in advance

Seven weeks later, here's my blog: Unblocking the Wordpress Block Editor. It should serve as a good starting point. It feels horribly incomplete, but at 3000 words, I felt I should stop. LOL.

Paul, I just looked over your blog post and it's very good. At some point when I have more time, I'm going to do an experiment and see if this will work on my Dreamwidth site because I think Dreamwidth interfaces with WordPress and vice versa.