2025 Session Archive

Board Member Joe Dolson opens the conference with important information for attendees and a thank you to sponsors and volunteers.

When we think of accessibility, we often think about the usual suspects — color contrast, legible font sizes, and mobile tap targets. However, accessible and inclusive design reaches far beyond that. How would you design for young children and older adults? What about users with dyslexia and color blindness? How do we test with screen…

Matt is a designer. Matt is also colour-blind. This combination helps him see things from a different perspective. Being colourblind in a profession that requires a certain eye for detail has certainly generated lots of conversation over the years on how the condition impacts design decisions. In this talk Matt will talk through both his…

Unless taking advantage of text-to-speech tools, visiting a website or using an app typically involves some degree of active reading, more or less in-depth. This reading experience can vary significantly depending on a range of factors, including visual and cognitive processes, attention, usage context, and individual characteristics. Understanding how we read, the skills it requires,…

Most projects and tools are developed with Western infrastructure, assumptions, and user contexts in mind. However, in many parts of the Global South, realities like unstable internet, power outages, shared devices, and linguistic diversity reshape what “accessible” actually means. This talk explores how designers, developers, and open source contributors can center these often overlooked contexts…

Being minimally accessible is a given on the web today. But meeting all WCAG success criteria only ensures users are not blocked from accessing content. We don’t just want an avoidance of failure. We want raging success. In this session, we’ll walk through the creation of a website for the Braille Institute, a national organization…

Audio content on WordPress-websites is growing. Websites with audio content (podcasts and music) should be accessible and comprehensible for all people. This talk is about creating accessible audio content with open-source-tools and how to place it the best way in WordPress. We are talking about audio quality, transcripts and sound control.

Accessibility lawsuits are skyrocketing, and nearly one in five of them in 2024 specifically named WordPress websites as defendants. In this session, we’ll unpack the real-world legal cases shaping the digital landscape and spotlight the accessibility violations that trigger them most often. Attendees will walk away with clear, practical insights into how these violations arise,…

Have you ever wondered how accessibility impacts the real disabled user experience? Or perhaps you've questioned whether or not you were doing things that actually mattered or were just part of the standard guidelines? In this session, James Warnken, a legally blind digital accessibility expert, walks us through just how impactful some accessibility features are…

Accessibility issues don’t have to surprise you — or your users. Continuous AI for Accessibility is an approach to building accessible products by embedding tools, AI, and best practices directly into the development process. In this session, I’ll share how we built an open-source prototype tool and show features like automated accessibility scans and alerts…

We tend to think of accessibility only in terms of the websites we build, but often fail to consider the physical and virtual spaces where we gather to storytell and create tomorrow's WordPress. Events such as WordCamps, WordPress Meetups, do_action, etc, come in various flavors powered by local communities around the world each year. But…

In this technical session, Osdeibi Acurero shares a real-world walkthrough of auditing and improving the accessibility of a WordPress plugin. From common mistakes that often go unnoticed to the tools used to validate accessibility standards, this talk is aimed at developers who want to make their plugins more inclusive. Through a practical case study, he…

Most accessibility professionals know that screen reader testing is essential — but very few feel confident doing it. In this session, Akosua Asabere (a native screen reader user and seasoned accessibility engineer) and Deneb Pulsipher (a visual developer and accessibility advocate) team up to demystify screen reader use for beginners and intermediate testers alike. Together,…

Accessibility goes far beyond visual design. In WordPress projects, themes and plugins play a key role in either enabling — or breaking — an inclusive browsing experience. This session presents a practical technical checklist that developers, QA professionals, and site maintainers can use to test and validate the accessibility of any WordPress theme or plugin,…

This session explores how WordPress can better serve the Deaf Australian community through Auslan (Australian Sign Language) accessibility. The presenter will highlight practical strategies for integrating Auslan into WordPress websites using themes, plugins, and design practices that prioritise inclusion. Topics include video embedding for Auslan content, user-friendly navigation for Deaf users, and how developers, content…

Rose Kivuva is a software developer and passionate advocate for accessibility and ethical technology. In this eye-opening session, she takes a deep look at how artificial intelligence — while exciting and powerful — isn’t always designed with everyone in mind. From chatbots that can’t understand certain speech patterns to image generators that skip alt text,…

In this practical and developer-friendly session, Anam Hossain will demonstrate how to build accessible Gutenberg blocks using modern tools and techniques. Attendees will learn how to implement semantic HTML, ARIA attributes, and keyboard navigation to make custom blocks usable for everyone. The session will also explore how to use Chrome DevTools for auditing accessibility issues…

Inclusive design is not truly inclusive without disabled voices. Too often, accessibility testing is focused on box ticking, is completely tokenistic, or missing entirely. In this practical session, you'll learn how to set up and run user testing sessions that genuinely include and empower disabled people. Drawing on real-world experience, I’ll cover everything from ethical…

Jennifer is a frontend engineer working in a highly regulated financial institution. In her daily work, she experiences how accessibility is often treated as a secondary concern, something to be addressed only if time and budget allow. But in highly regulated environments like banking, this approach is not only short-sighted, it’s risky. Accessibility is not…

In today’s digital world, ensuring documents are accessible to all individuals, including those with disabilities, is more crucial than ever. This session will delve into the fundamentals of document accessibility, focusing on how to effectively create, review, and modify digital documents to meet the needs of individuals using assistive technologies and meet international accessibility standards.…

In the race to build visually iconic brands, we’ve overlooked a simple truth: if people can’t read, see, or understand your brand, are you really reaching them? What if your brand’s typography can’t be read by someone with low vision? What if your icons confuse rather than clarify? What if your entire identity system is…

Imagine a world, where your mouse doesn’t work properly, just your keyboard. Where text plays hide-and-seek, but a screen reader always finds it. Welcome to a digital escape game set in a unique world where assistive and standard technologies swap roles. In this presentation, I’ll take you behind the scenes of this game, designed to…

Currently, AI is buzzing around the world where people want to find solutions that can be taken care through any AI implementation. It definitely enhances the productivity and helps find solutions to different problems. However, one needs to ensure that the output given by the AI is also an accurate one and if it will…

Digital skills training programs have the power to transform lives, but for many people with disabilities (PWDs), accessibility barriers still limit full participation. This session explores how WordPress, as an open-source platform, can be a catalyst for digital inclusion by enabling accessible learning environments and empowering underrepresented groups. Through a case study of a community-driven…

Accessibility impacts everyone, not just “disabled” users. From contrast to semantics, when you take the time to maximize accessibility, you’re improving every user’s experience. In this session, Kevin Andrews — a certified Web Accessibility Specialist and accessibility expert with over a decade of professional leadership and more than 20 years navigating the web with a…