WP Accessibility Day

Learning Accessibility

WP Accessibility Day is a nonprofit organisation that runs the annual 24-hour virtual conference, WordPress Accessibility Day. The event began five years ago, originally launched by the WordPress Core Accessibility Team, and is now organised by volunteers from around the world.

This year marked the largest conference to date, with more than 2,000 attendees joining from 64 countries. Its growth comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the rising importance of digital accessibility for both businesses and communities.

The talks covered a wide range of topics – from the lived experiences of people who use accessibility tools, to user testing practices, creating accessible documents, and even the role of AI in accessibility (of course).

With a continuous 24-hour schedule, attending every session live wasn’t going to work for me (though I’m sure some managed it!). Thankfully, the organisers made recordings available afterwards, giving attendees time to revisit and catch up. I’m still working through some of them, but below are some of my observations and takeaways from a selection of the talks I’ve attended so far.

Why Accessibility Matters

Accessibility matters because the people using your site matter. Building and maintaining an accessible website supports inclusion and benefits everyone. Digital accessibility ensures equal participation and often improves usability for all users – it removes barriers caused by permanent, temporary or situational limitations.

What do I mean by permanent, temporary or situational limitations? An example:

• Permanent limitation: someone who is blind
• Temporary limitation: someone who’s broken their reading glasses
• Situational limitation: someone using a device in bright sunlight

All three of these people cannot see their screen; an inaccessible website means three people can’t access the service they want. An accessible website means they can. In the Irish Census 2022, 22% of the population reported having a long-lasting condition / difficulty or disability. One fifth of the population.

Beyond inclusion, accessibility is just good business. An accessible website reaches a wider audience and creates a better experience for all of its users. There are legal requirements too, of course, different industries and locations have standards to adhere to, but I prefer the holistic approach. One that goes beyond compliance to focus on real user experience.

“Accessibility is not a compliance checklist. It’s an effort to keep a digital experience meaningful and usable for as many people as possible.” – Vitaly Friedman in his keynote talk Accessible Design Patterns for 2025

We want to develop websites that, to paraphrase Friedman above, can and will be used by people who want and need to use them.

Highlights from WP Accessibility Day 2025

Accessibility Design Patterns for 2025

In this session, Vitaly Friedman, UX consultant for the European Parliament and co-founder of Smashing Magazine, delivered an engaging deep dive into user experience and accessibility-driven design. His session was packed with practical examples and insights that can be applied to almost any project.

This was one of my favourite talks for its granular look at design detail and user behaviour. Vitaly explored how users interact with dropdown menus and how small adjustments can help them reach their goals faster. He also referenced the persona examples in Microsoft’s Inclusive 101 Guidebook, an excellent resource that highlights diverse user scenarios a designer and developer should keep in mind.

One of the most interesting sections focused on familiar user behaviour patterns. As Vitaly pointed out, people tend to block pop-ups, skip carousels, and ignore chat windows — especially when they aren’t human. We all accept cookie banners just to make them disappear and enter fake emails for discounts. Businesses often display these same behaviours as users, yet still decide that three pop-ups on a landing page will sell more mugs (Proactive would never!). 

Vitaly also shared a list of patterns that genuinely delight users: fast and accessible experiences, large legible text, clear error messages, smart autocomplete, easy subscription pauses, and transparent pricing. It’s hard to disagree; why make things difficult when simplicity and clarity work so well?

Being a Colour Blind Designer

Speaker: Matt Roberts

Matt Roberts is a colour blind designer. This combination often requires him to see things from a different perspective. Matt talked through his personal and professional experience of being colour blind, hoping to influence design teams to factor colourblindness into their design decisions.

This was an insightful session that focused more on personal experience than technical implementation. Matt focused less on tools and techniques, and more on sharing his lived experience. It was an impactful reminder of the importance of empathy in design and an invaluable perspective. I will be sharing it with our design team when it becomes publicly available to help them design more inclusively.One of the key resources mentioned was Sim Daltonism. This is a colour blindness simulator that filters a region of your screen, rather than just the browser.

Accessibility Lawsuits and WordPress: The Violations Every Business Needs to Know

Speaker: Vanessa Tillemans

A familiar pattern emerges at these events: the motivation to deliver accessible products should come from wanting to do the right thing, not just needing to. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the financially savvy thing to do. And that’s great! But while the desire to be inclusive should be the primary motivation, it’s not always enough, and that’s where this talk comes in. 

For many industries and regions, accessibility is not just a nice to have, it’s a compliance issue. There are risks involved in providing inaccessible products to your customers. You risk legal liability, market share loss through excluding users, and damaged brand and reputation.

Vanessa’s key advice: integrate accessibility into every workflow. Make it the default; the good thing becomes the easy thing. Adopt the mindset that nothing ships without accessibility.

She added that compliance can’t be a plugin. Vanessa cited examples of companies that have been caught out, including one accessibility overlay plugin developer. These plugins don’t fix the underlying issues; they simply hide them. It’s worth noting that in the US, regulators do not accept these plugins as compliance.

Tillemans also reminded us that accessibility goes beyond code. She emphasised the importance of clear content and plain, human (“easy”) language over jargon, and stressed the human touch remains crucial for long-term accessibility.

Accessibility Isn’t Extra Work. It’s Risk Management

Speaker: Jennifer Wjertzoch

I also want to highlight Jennifer Wjertzoch’s talk which explored the same themes. Jennifer focused primarily on examples from the U.S. and how the legal framework works there. However with digital accessibility only recently gaining increased legal standing in the EU, it is interesting to see how it is executed over there.

In the U.S., if someone can demonstrate they attempted to engage your service, learn about your company, or even simply sign up to your newsletter and were blocked from doing so because of accessibility barriers, your business could face legal action.

Jennifer also noted that accessibility overlay plugins continue to be problematic. In 2023, 25% of ADA (American Disabilities Act) lawsuits used these types of widgets. The WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) require the website to be accessible by default.

There’s no need to labour the point, but the takeaway is pretty clear: legal compliance means fixing accessibility barriers in your code, content and design, not hiding them.

Demystifying Screen Readers: Your Guided Intro to Manual Accessibility Testing for WordPress Sites

Speaker: Deneb Pulsipher, Akosua “Kosi” Asabere

Screen reader testing is one of the more time-consuming and challenging parts of accessibility testing for users who don’t use it daily. 

Watching (or listening to, I should say) someone use a screen reader as their primary method of browsing is incredible. The speed at which they navigate a well-built website matches any mouse user, while the hurdles they face are beyond frustrating.

Manual testing with a screen reader is required if you are serious about accessibility. Screen reader users navigate the page via page titles, headings and landmarks. Pop-ups and notices are particularly challenging, often becoming keyboard traps that prevent the user moving forward. It interrupts their flow and interferes with their ability to quickly and smoothly navigate a website.

It is essential designers, developers and content writers all work together to ensure a smooth journey for screen readers, providing vital feedback on interactions and clear structured information. Common blocks include missing alternative text, lack of keyboard control, excessive or unstructured content, and multimedia without audio description.

This talk did a great job of demonstrating how a native screen reader user navigates a page, and underscored the importance of testing with empathy, accuracy, and clarity. For non-native users like myself (hello!), matching the skill of someone with lived experience is unlikely, but improvement comes with practice. Using a screen reader demands intense cognitive focus and mental rehearsal. It is something we are continuously working on at Proactive in order to deliver the best results for our clients.

The Art of Accessibility: Making Documents Delightfully Inclusive

Speaker: Samantha Merrett

While document accessibility isn’t part of my daily workflow, I was eager to hear this one. Delivered by Samantha Merrett, a Senior Accessibility Specialist at the Ministry of Justice in the UK government, it was enlightening and informative.

An accessible document is a document created to be as easily readable by a low vision or non-sighted reader as a sighted reader. Although not yet part of WCAG, document accessibility is expected to feature in 3.0, so it’s worth getting ahead of it.

Samantha outlined best practices across documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, stressing the importance of choosing the right format. Ask yourself who will use the document, and how?

Her advice on PDFs was clear: avoid them. PDFs aren’t flexible or adaptable to user needs, and converted PowerPoints rarely remain accessible. As she put it, “If it’s made in Word, it should stay in Word.”

Instead, build structured Word documents: use descriptive headings, add alternative text, keep tables simple, and remember that headers and footers aren’t read by screen readers. Produce one accessible version for everyone – not separate versions that divide your audience.

As with web development, integrate accessibility from the start, test at every stage and use automated accessibility checkers as a supplement to manual testing.

The Future is Automated – But Will It Be Accessible?

Speaker: Rose Kivuva

A recent report revealed 95% of the top one million home pages fail at least one element of the WCAG 2 tests. 

Since AI learns from what already exists online, this level of failure poses a serious risk. Trying to retrofit accessibility fixes after production can be up to 30 times more expensive than addressing them in development. Another reason to get it right from the start.

Thanks to AI, it’s never been easier to integrate accessibility into your workflow. Many tools now offer automated insights, advice on manual testing, and even code review suggestions. Maximising the benefits of AI still requires someone skilled enough to review, correct, and improve its output. Human review remains crucial.

This is not a knock on an AI (you, dear reader, are benefiting hugely from its editorial feedback – trust me!). Its results are incredible and shouldn’t be dismissed. However, relying on AI for content writing, design, or code risks alienating users, and if used lazily or recklessly can even exclude them. Those users will continue to be excluded because they always have been.

In Summary

WP Accessibility Day 2025 was a reminder that accessibility is never “finished”. It’s a process of constant learning, testing, and improving – and above all, a lesson in empathy. The more I learn, the more I appreciate how every small decision contributes to a more inclusive experience, and how important it is to provide that.

Across every talk, one theme stood out: accessibility isn’t just a technical add-on. It’s a commitment to people.

At Proactive, our goal is to keep that human focus at the centre of everything we build. We’re applying these lessons and continually refining our approach so that accessibility becomes a foundation rather than a feature.