Issue #129 Loop WP

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #128 of Loop WP!

Last week, after putting things off for a couple of weeks, I decided to share my thoughts on the Halloween Horror show that the latest #WPDrama has become (and continues to be).

This week, my newsletter will be published on WordPress Accessibility Day, so what subject is better to discuss than Accessibility and the European Disability Act?

And the Weekly WordPress News & Tips section gets back to normal.

Let’s go! 👇

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Accessibility in WordPress or my email marketing newsletter “All About Email” (formerly Mail Mondays) when I wrote about GAAD.

🎉 Today, October 9th, is WordPress Accessibility Day. WP Accessibility Day is a nonprofit organisation that runs an annual 24-hour virtual conference called “WordPress Accessibility Day.”

WordPress Accessibility Day

💡 Despite being called WordPress Accessibility Day, the event runs from October 9th to 10th. It’s free to attend, but you can also donate or purchase special tickets that include a donation.

This will be the event's fourth year after taking a break in 2021.

⚡️ Attendees can register for free and watch live streams of talks held via Zoom with live captions and American Sign Language (ASL) Interpretation.

After the conference ends, presentations are edited, transcribed, captioned, and freely available online.

🧐 Check out the plugins and services from two WordPress Accessibility Day’s founders, Amber Hinds and Bet Hannon, at the bottom of this email.

Amber (and Equalize Digital) have been working with the WooCommerce team to make it more accessible, which leads us to our next topic. 👇

The European Accessibility Act 2025

If you’ve not heard of the European Accessibility Act (I hadn’t until last year), Kinsta has an excellent article explaining it in depth.

The Short Version

I am not a lawyer, but based on reading Kinsta's article for the first time:

• The rules apply to EU member states.

• Each EU member state must make the directive a national law.

• Enforcement begins in 2025.

• The rules will not apply to Microenterprises.

• Compliance with WCAG "should" be enough (I'm unsure what level).

• Fines are unknown as yet.

• Enforcement will be by an individual EU member state.

• If you sell to EU customers, you must comply.

🚨 That last point (just like GDPR is a big one), the rules apply if you serve EU customers. Even if your company is not EU-based (and you are not a Microenterprise).

You can read more details on the Kinsta blog post.

Initial Thoughts

🎉 Amber Hinds explains why accessibility is vitally important, and I think this is a great move.

We all know the damning accessibility issues with Gutenberg when it was released almost five years ago.

🚨 It has come a long way since then, and there is a way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.

Last year, the "WP Community Collective" named Alex Stine as the “First Accessibility Fellow”, and as already mentioned, WordPress has an annual Accessibility Day.

🧠 Justin Tadlock wrote a great piece on "Why accessibility matters".

Existing Websites

As Meetup.com discovered, accessibility overlays are not the answer, and retrofitting an existing website to be accessible is not easy.

That's why Microenterprises are initially excluded from the new rules, but that doesn't mean those organisations (including myself) don't plan for future changes to the laws that might make them apply.

"Accessible by Design"

🔐 After GDPR was established, the phrase "Privacy by Design" saw a resurgence and took on significant meaning.

Accessibility has always been important (whether you or I considered it or not), but perhaps now, when building websites, the two foundations for building are:

1. Privacy by Design

2. Accessibility by Design

Accessibility Checker

Equalize Digital offers a free (and pro) version of their Accessibility Checker plugin for WordPress. The free plugin is a great place to get started, as I did for my website, but I now use the pro version.

AccessiCart

While I don’t use this service personally, Bet Hannon and her team have built a superb service. Bet has given so much to the WordPress community while striving to promote accessibility.

AccessiCart is a service rather than a plugin with a transparent pricing structure and process. This might be the solution for you. 👇

That’s it for this week 👋

⏭️ Next week, there is no Loop WP. 🥺

I’m taking next week off, but the next issue of Loop WP will drop on Wednesday, October 23rd.

Weekly WordPress News & Tips

WordPress News & Tips are back, offering excellent and insightful content this week!

• No Devs? - Launching On-Demand Development: Get Expert Support When You Need It. (WPMU Dev)

• Give Away - 10th Anniversary + Pro Plugin Giveaway. (Jeff Star)

• Do You Do This? - Why Agencies Should Offer Recurring Accessibility Services (Equalize Digital)

• Public Release Calendar - Announcing a new resource for the developer community: a public WooCommerce Release Calendar. (WooCommerce)

• Hosting - What to ask your web host about security: A checklist for business owners. (Kinsta)

• A Broader Issue - Private Equity and the Soul of WordPress. (The WP Minute)

• Moving - WPGraphQL to Become a Canonical Plugin as its Creator Joins Automattic. (WP Tavern)

• Balancing Act - Solving the Maker-Taker problem. (Dries Buytaert)

• Core - In Support of Canonical Plugins. (Brian Coords)

• WP Creators Live - Episode 3: A World Outside WordPress. (Imran, Jeffrey, Mark, Paul)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,

Disclaimer: The WordPress logo and name are trademarks of the WordPress Foundation, and their use in this image is for illustrative purposes only. This image is not affiliated with, endorsed, or sponsored by WordPress or the WordPress Foundation. The WordPress Foundation owns all rights to the WordPress trademark.