Written by Andrea Fercia & Joe Dolson

WordPress 4.2 is shipping with a useful new JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. method: wp.a11y.speak() . This is a utility to make it easy for WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. to create consistent methods for providing live updates for JavaScript events to users of screen readers – with the side benefit that developers of plug-ins and themes can also make use of it either on the front or back end.

Why.

In modern web development, updating discrete regions of a screen with JavaScript is common. The use of AJAX responses in modern JavaScript-based User Interfaces allows web developers to create beautiful interfaces similar to Desktop applications that don’t require pages to reload or refresh.

JavaScript can create great usability improvements for most users – but when content is updated dynamically, it has the potential to introduce accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) issues. This is one of the steps you can take to handle that problem.

What.

When a portion of a page is updated with JavaScript, the update is usually highlighted with animation and bright colors, and is easy to see. But if you don’t have the ability to see the screen, you don’t know this has happened, unless the updated region is marked as an ARIA-live region.

If this isn’t marked, there’s no notification for screen readers. But it’s also possible that all the region content will be announced after an update, if the ARIA live region is too large. You want to provide users with just a simple, concise message.

How.

That’s what wp.a11y.speak() is meant for. It’s a simple tool that creates and appends an ARIA live notifications area to the <body> element where developers can dispatch text messages. Assistive technologies will automatically announce any text change in this area. This ARIA live region has an ARIA role of “status” so it has an implicit aria-live value of polite and an implicit aria-atomic value of true .

This means assistive technologies will notify users of updates but generally do not interrupt the current task, and updates take low priority. If you’re creating an application with higher priority updates (such as a notification that their current session is about to expire, for example), then you’ll want to create your own method with an aria-live value of assertive .

How do I use this?

enqueue ‘wp- a11y Accessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) ’ from your plugin Plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or theme or set it as a dependency of the script that generates updates

’ from your or theme or set it as a dependency of the script that generates updates on DOM ready, pass a translatable string to wp.a11y.speak() : wp.a11y.speak( mystring );

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'yourprefix_a11y' ); function yourprefix_a11y() { wp_enqueue_script( 'wp-a11y' ); }

or

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'yourprefix_ajax' ); function yourprefix_ajax() { wp_enqueue_script( 'yourprefix.ajax', get_template_directory_uri() . '/js/ajax.js', array( 'wp-a11y' ) ); }

For an implementation example, take a look at wp-admin/js/updates.js . An important note: wp.a11y.speak() is only available after DOM ready, so be sure not to call it earlier!

If you’re intending to use this in your theme, you should take note that your theme should also support the core class .screen-reader-text , which is used in the inserted content. Read more about screen reader text.

References and further reading