Almost Incomplete Inaccessibility in WordPress 3.8 Using Various Screen Readers

Hi Kim, just wanted to let you know that a link to this thread has been distributed to WP forum moderators. Matt Mullenweg has also just linked to this topic from http://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/.

Hi Kim, sorry to hear about your troubles.

Sounds like WordPress is running in “responsive” mode. It is intended for tablets and phones, but not for screen readers.

The responsive mode is triggered by the browser window’s width. Suspecting that either the window is quite narrow or the zoom is set to a high value.

Could you try making the window wider and/or reducing the zoom (Ctrl and minus or Ctrl and 0 in both Firefox and IE).

Hi Kim & Geothom. My name is Jackie, I’m a blind wordpress developer & also a part of the Make WordPress Accessible team.

Neither of you have provided the following information, which would be helpful:
a) Your operating system;
b) The browsers you use & their versions;
c) The adaptive technologies you use, if any, as well as their versions;
d) The type of device you’re using, i.e., desktop, laptop, tablet, etc.; &
e) The url’s of your sites.

Just so you know, the link that says “submenu” actually indicates a list of items that is to follow. Also, I am not experiencing these issues using the latest version of NVDA & Firefox. I’ll check w/Jaws & Window-Eyes later, as well as IE.

I would ask that you please update your browsers, if applicable, as well as your adaptive technologies, if the latter is possible. Certainly it is w/NVDA, but I understand updating 1 of the paid screenreaders may well not be an option. NVDA does handle WordPress very well, & I’d recommend becoming familiar w/it. Truthfully, I’ve seen it handle stuff that Jaws or Window-Eyes didn’t handle well. Go figure!

Thank you for providing the requested information so that we can better diagnose & provide fixes/workarounds for the issues you’re encountering.

I’ll be standing by & checking in from time to time this evening to see if there are any replies & to see if we can’t resolve the difficulties you folks are experiencing.

P.S. I meant to add that I have tried turning laptop off/on several times but still have the same problems each restart.

Hi, geotom, & thanks for your information. I have a few more questions:
a) What is your theme?
b) Are u running any plugins besides Yoast Seo?
c) What adaptive technology(ies) are you using?
d) Do you have skype?

Obviously since I can’t reproduce what you’re experiencing, I’m trying to find some differentiating factors that might help us figure out what’s occurring. 1 thing I think I can say w/a fair amount of certainty is that restarting your laptop isn’t going to help this particular situation.

I’d like to see you go back to a default theme if you’re not already using 1 & see if that works. I understand, however, that since this is your business website, it might cause your customers some consternation if you changed the site appearance on them. So–could you please try disabling your plugins to see if that makes any difference? Then we can try re-enabling them 1 at a time if it does until we find the culprit. Obviously, if it makes no difference, then the next step really might be to try a default theme & see if that works. Having said that, though, I’ve tried this both with a default theme & 1 I’ve purchased, & both work fine.

Yeah, that’s why I’m asking the questions I am, cuz that’s the road I’m headed down as well, Joe. I’ll hang in w/this topic till we find some answers.

I am desperately trying to get some new media uploaded. Have copy of 3.7.1. If I ftp that over existing files do you expect I will encounter any problems?