Aaron Jorbin, who has had the pleasure of contributing code to the last three versions of the year-based default WordPress Themes, has shared a few great thoughts on what he’d like to see in this year’s release.
One of the more notable ideas is his focus on accessibility:
I want Twenty Thirteen to tackle another problem that the education and example of a default theme can do. I want Twenty Thirteen to be designed and built Accessibility First.
Aaron goes on to share what he means by this explicitly:
- Color choices with high contrast in mind from the start. This is one area that Twenty Twelve barely missed.
- Color choices with multiple types of color deficiencies in mind since an estimated 10% of all males suffer from some form of color deficiency.
- Making up for browser deficiencies, specifically the skipnav focus bug in webkit.
- Make sure that the design still looks beautiful when the font size is increased 200%.
- Following the Theme Accessibility Audit Draft Proposal.
On a personal sidenote, I had no idea that 10% of males have some form of color deficiency; I wonder if I suffer from that at all…
Conversations are happening on his blog as well as the make accessibility forum. I really agreed with one point made in the comment stream that WordPress could help lead the industry in terms of making a widely known application more accessible. Just think of how WordPress could begin to impact other applications and professionals as they seek to make their software more in-line with these needs.
That would be a big win for WordPress and users everywhere and an opportunity to create a significant amount of goodwill. I say that we do it!
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