[theme-reviewers] Accessible theme issues

[Bryan Hadaway]

Therein lies the trouble, see, we've already gotten subjective into what is
considered "accessible". I say something is an accessibility issue, you say
it isn't. We're both merely forming our opinions (neither of us are stating
facts - I hope you do realize that).

Is a media heavy website accessible to users with really slow internet?
Yes, in 2012 that is still a factor, there are still even complete dead
zones (no internet at all) in the US.

What about colors for the color blind?

What about font size, color and typography for the hard of sight?

What about sliders or flashing graphics for epileptics?

What about responsiveness for people with small screens?

And the list goes on and on and on.

Accessibility is a good thing, I don't see how anyone could argue that, but
to enforce that standard to any degree is a tough one. Any one of the above
issues might stop half the people submitting themes right now dead in their
tracks. Would it be better to filter them out or help them get their theme
approved anyways, because it will still be a theme with enough value to
help out thousands of people?

And there's also simply a factor of fun here, there are a lot of awful,
ugly themes in the repository, but so be it, because in the spirit of an
open source community, come one, come all and contribute (and a theme I
might find unusable and ugly someone else might think is awesome and
perfect for their project).

I totally get what you're saying about at least making it possible to
filter out the best quality themes from all the other themes (I just don't
see how that's impossible unless we made the review process more strict).
I'm curious, have you submitted or are you currently working on an
accessible theme? You might consider making a theme framework called
Accessibility and make it the most accessible theme there is. That would be
a great way to contribute.

I'm sure you know more about the subject than me, but here are some links
of interest:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Accessibility
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/search.php?q=accessibility
http://thinkingaccessible.com/top-accessible-wordpress-themes/

I'm not sure if an admin has responded yet or not, I'm just a reviewer
sharing my opinion. An admin can give more of a definitive yes/no/maybe
answer.

Thanks, Bryan


Bryan Phillip Hadaway


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


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