[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #37661: A New Experience for Discovering, Installing, and Previewing Themes in the Customizer

[WordPress Trac]

#37661: A New Experience for Discovering, Installing, and Previewing Themes in the
Customizer
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 Reporter:  celloexpressions         |       Owner:  celloexpressions
     Type:  feature request          |      Status:  reopened
 Priority:  high                     |   Milestone:  4.7
Component:  Customize                |     Version:  4.2
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch has-           |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility,
  screenshots needs-testing has-     |  javascript
  user-testing ux-feedback           |
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Comment (by afercia):

 We've discussed this ticket in the accessibility team and agreed we can't
 honestly say the Customizer itself is fully accessible. We're fine with
 considering the Customizer a territory for experimental accessibility,
 where we can test and research accessibility solutions for "modern"
 interfaces. As long as equivalent features stay in the traditional admin
 screens.

 Will try to summarize the main a11y issues specific to this implementation
 (I see other usability and UI issues are already pointed out in the
 previous comments and I agree on most of them).

 - Keyboard accessibility: everything can be done with keyboard. A big
 issue is infinite scroll though, see below
 - Infinite scroll is a big accessibility barrier, as mentioned in a
 previous comment. This is a pre-existing issue for Themes, but seems
 there's no improvement in this area. If WordPress wants to be really
 accessible, infinite scroll should not be used at all
 - Markup still doesn't validate, see comment comment:63
 - On the admin screens, both for installed themes and Add Themes screen,
 the number of displayed themes is announced via `wp.a11y.speak()`, on the
 the Customizer instead this information is missing
 - When selecting Featured, Popular, etc., or using the Feature Filter or
 Get Favorites, there's no audible feedback about what's happening. Looks
 like `wp.a11y.speak()` is used just for the search, a request error, and
 when there are no themes
 - There's no audible indication of which "view" is selected, the checkmark
 is just a visual thing
 - Some aria-labels are added on the details modal controls, for example on
 the "Customize" and "Live Preview" but the one for Live Preview is the
 same for Customize and says "Customize {theme name}"
 - Why not add aria-labels on other controls too? all the ones related to a
 theme-specific action would need one to refer to the theme name, not sure
 why they're added just to "Customize" and "Live Preview"
 - I'd recommend to expand almost all of the other controls with `aria-
 label` attributes, starting from the "Change" button (Change... what?) and
 the main buttons like Installed, Featured, Popular, etc.
 - Usage of aria-owns for panels: I'm not sure to understand what is meant
 for
 - Will skip issues related to the theme thumbnails as, with some
 variations, they're for the most part pre-existing issues

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37661#comment:96>
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