[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #57031: Establish a plan to remove the skip link focus fix

[WordPress Trac]

#57031: Establish a plan to remove the skip link focus fix
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 Reporter:  afercia                              |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement                          |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                               |  Milestone:  Awaiting
                                                 |  Review
Component:  Bundled Theme                        |    Version:
 Severity:  normal                               |   Keywords:
  Focuses:  accessibility, javascript,           |
  performance                                    |
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 Previously: #54421
 Related: #55552

 In #54421 a proposal was made to deprecate the 'skip link focus fix' used
 by some of the bundled themes. The conversation on the ticket led to the
 decision to keep the script but missed to establish a plan for the future.

 This issue was discussed at the latest Yoast contributor day on November
 2022 where the participants agreed to see it more as an issue related to
 actual browser usage rather than a backwards compatibility issue. Worth
 reminding this script is now only needed for Internet Explorer 11 and
 previous versions . Keeping this script forever doesn;t seem ideal. As
 such, we’d like to propose to establish a plan for its removal,

 We could think of two options:
 - Establish a removal date based on a certain Internet Explorer usage
 threshold. [https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/best-practices
 /browser-support/ WordPress browser support] is based on the
 [https://caniuse.com/usage-table can I use browser usage table], which in
 turn is based on [https://gs.statcounter.com/ StatCounter GlobalStats].
 This approach would require to monitor the IE usage decrement overtime
 until it reaches a certain threshold, to be decided.
 - Remove the script on a future WordPress release. For example, 6.3 would
 warrant enough time to not rush and inform theme authors and users with
 some adequate notice.

 Any thoughts are very welcome.

 We do share some of the concerns expressed in #54421 but we’d also like to
 mention that if some users are still using Internet Explorer, the skip
 link is very likely the last of their problems with the WordPress bundled
 themes.

 On the other hand, removing the script is a slight performance gain and
 also reduces maintenance cost and effort for theme authors.

 Cc @poena @westonruter

 References:

 **IE 11 Support Phase Out Plan**
 https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/04/22/ie-11-support-phase-out-plan/
 **WordPress browser support**
 https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/best-practices/browser-support/
 **Browser Market Share Worldwide, October 2021 - 2022**
 https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-202110-202210

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/57031>
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