Fall into WordPress

Hi! It's Michelle Frechette with your WordPress Community Minute!

It's been almost two weeks since WordCamp US, and I continue to reflect on my (and others') experiences there.

Ultimately, it was an amazing time. I got to see people I hadn't seen in person in years, and I got to see people in person I'd only ever seen on a screen before.

I loved it! 

But if you've seen my tweets and my posts recently, you also know that it was a bit of an accessibility nightmare for me, as someone who uses a mobility device. The response to the noise I've made has been overwhelmingly positive. But I don't want the attention we give to issues that some of us in the community encounter to fade away.

So here's your reminder.

The WordPress community is a community for ALL WordPress users. Not just the ones that are most convenient, have the biggest platforms or followings, are the nicest or most fun, or are in any other way influential.

Remember to be inclusive of everyone. Underrepresented WordPress users have just as much to offer as anyone else, and you might find their perspectives anywhere on the scale from refreshing to downright eye opening.

So next time you have an opportunity to interact with - or more importantly, to include - someone from an underrepresented group, lean in, make friends, and learn from one another.

You never know how much better our community can be when we include everyone. 

Hi, this is Amber Hinds from Equalize Digital and this is your WordPress Accessibility minute.

In celebration of Deaf Awareness month and we’re talking about how to make your website accessible to people who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing. In a previous segment I covered the importance of having accurate captions on your videos. The second way you can ensure accessibility for the d/Deaf community to include transcripts.

Transcripts are written text of spoken audio and important sounds. You most frequently see transcripts published with podcast episodes. If you go to the WP Minute web page for this episode you can see an example of a transcript for what you’re hearing right now.  

Transcripts allow people who can’t listen to audio – whether they can’t hear, don’t have speakers attached to their desktop computer (that’s more common than you might think!), or are sitting in a public space and forgot their headphones. No matter what, transcripts allow people to still have access to the content. 

Most of us know that podcasts and other audio need transcripts. But here’s something you might not realize: videos – even captioned videos – need transcripts too.

People who are Deaf-Blind can’t read captions on videos because they can’t see them. If you have videos on your website and want to allow the video content to be easily translatable into a refreshable Braille display so that Deaf-Blind people can access your videos too, you need a transcript.

Transcripts should be positioned immediately after the video or audio file under a heading of “transcript” so that it is easy for people to find them. You can put them into an accordion if you don’t want them visible on the page – as long as your accordion can be opened and closed with a keyboard only (no mouse required). It’s also acceptable to place a link to a transcript on another page so long as that link is clearly labled. Something like: “Read transcript for episode 123.”

Generally, though, I recommend that transcripts live on the same page as your audio and video content .

Here’s why:

Transcripts make the user experience better for everyone. They allow listeners or watchers (and you!) to more easily refer back to a snippet from the middle of an episode, because having all the text on the page makes your content searchable. 

Along these same lines, providing full transcripts on the page with your podcast episodes or videos will increase the keywords on the page and help your content rank better in search engines. With how competitive the SEO game is, adding a transcript is an easy way to get ahead.

This Deaf Awareness Month think about the content on your website or social media channels. Are you providing captions and transcripts? If not, now’s the time to start!

Thanks for listening and feel free to reach out if you have any questions about this WordPress Accessibility Minute or how you can make your website more accessible.