WCAG 2.0/ADA Compliance front-end audits

[TopherHough]

[summary by @sybrew] Add a test that checks for WCAG 2.0(+) compliance on your pages. Reporting issues on accessibility, like link-spacing and text-contrast, to help people use your website more comfortably.

Such tests are sophisticated and require a framework that can understand HTML, CSS, and JS layout structures autonomously, and therefore I marked this as "maybe later" (but probably never). TSF is not created with this in mind but solely focusses on the technical markup instead.

Other automated tests are available, such as web.dev. But accurate compliance tests can only be done by humans, at least for now.

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[original post]

I sell WordPress websites. I have clients asking me about ADA... Since ADA Compliance is really just SEO - maybe you guys can add an ADA feature. ADA ain't goin' away for websites, it will only get bigger. (just an idea)

[sybrew]

Hello! Could you describe what such a feature would entail?

Please keep in mind that accessibility is an effort that should be carried throughout the site; this isn't something we can automatically address or even reliably test against. Instead, each piece of software (WP, plugins, theme) should contribute to this effort autonomously. To get a grasp of what this entails, please review the guidelines. They're quite extensive.

I believe I've done my part already, in making the plugins and our website completely accessible (although I never bothered with obtaining a certificate). Other than that, I cannot see how I can further contribute. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!

[TopherHough]

My apologies. Sorry Sybre. You misunderstood me. I was suggesting the SEO Framework adds a feature or maybe an extension to help web designers make websites ADA compliant... Maybe a feature that help web designers do ADA audits to determine what changes need to be made to their client's site so the client's site can be ADA compliant.

Thanks for your help on my issue earlier.

I am using your SEO Framework on 10 website I manage for clients and I really like it. Thanks for all your hard work!!!

Have an awesome day!

Thank you,

Christopher Hough

[sybrew: removed email footer]

[sybrew]

Thank you for the explanation, Christopher! I've updated the title and original post to reflect the goal of this issue.

Replicating these tests usually done by humans is a full-time job and can take tens of thousands of manhours to become reliable in the real world. Therefore, it's far out of the scope of this project. If possible, we might be able to adopt an existing test (via an API), but AFAIK these do not exist yet. Google Lighthouse is one of these projects, but it only highlights a few issues. Moreover, Google already automatically test for issues with Lighthouse and reports them via Google Search Console.