[theme-reviewers] Accessible theme issues

[Bryan Hadaway]

Looking at http://www.joedolson.com/ I can see that accessible web design
is very important to you as it is to most web designers. Obviously, we want
our work to be as user-friendly, cross-browser-friendly, SEO-friendly,
translation-ready, everything-friendly etc etc as much as possible to
maximize accessibility and usability and overall quality.

However, a lot of that is subjective and/or not necessarily required. That
level of standard and the depth of the review process (that it would take
for quality assurance) is simply too impractical for volunteer-based work.

Since you're so passionate about it I recommend starting a website
dedicated to this (that's what I would do):

accessiblewp.org for example is available
http://whois.domaintools.com/accessiblewp.org

Set your guidelines for a good "accessible" theme and then do your own
independent reviews of themes from the official repo and showcase the best
accessible themes. Do it long enough and well enough and
accessiblewp.orgwill gain the kind of trust and authority in ensuring
the level of
accessible standards you seek.

The problem with official use like I touched on is that it would simply be
too strict. Theme authors are struggling as it is to get their themes
approved (the review process already is pretty rigorous really). There are
only 1,606 officially approved WP themes in the world. That is an insanely
small number. To make the process even more strict we'll start hurting
creativity, because let's face it, style/graphic/feature heavy themes (the
themes that most people are after), by their very definition are not very
accessible.

I encourage you to continue seeking this level of standard, but the golden
rule always remain unchanged until the end of mankind; you want something
done right, you have to do it yourself.

Good luck.

Thanks, Bryan


Bryan Phillip Hadaway


Web & Graphic Designer
calmestghost.com
bhadaway at gmail.com


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