In this post we gathered testing results for the new text editor Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/.
As the functionality is work in progress, we will use these test results to create issues and add to the discussion on GitHub.
If you wrote a blogpost about this or published test results in another way, please add this as comment to this post, or tweet it to WPAccessibility. Then we’ll add it to the list of blog posts with testdata.
In this post:
- Results WPa11y test team
- Blogposts with test data and research
- Call to action
Results WPa11y test team July 6th 2017
Thanks to: Janki Moradiya, Riddhi Mehta, Shah Rishi, Geof Collis, Gabriela Nino de Rivera, Reagan Lynch, Shaun Everiss
We asked the
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) test team to look at the
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. Below are the reported
a11y 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) related experiences and issues:
General opinion:
Reagan: My first and initial impression, and yes I understand this is early testing, is that Gutenberg is a major change and major step backward in WP accessibility. I strongly encourage the WordPress development team to NOT put this as the default editor. If you want to force it then do so on
wordpress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/, but give us a choice with the .org (self-hosted) version. Gutenberg as it currently stands will force me to consider other platforms. In fact, after giving up on the second blog post I opened a Ghost account for the first time ever and began learning how their system works. If Gutenberg becomes the default Ghost will be the more accessible platform. (Using Windows 10 with Firefox and JAWS for Windows.)
Geof: To put it mildly, I don’t like it, it is too complicated and busy. I found it easier to add an image and move it around with in the main body if necessary, using a screen reader there are too many actions to deal with, I hope they drop the idea. (Using IE 11.096, JAWS 11 with latest updates, Windows 7.)
Shaun: I think in general, as long as you never need to change styles, add lists of media or ever interact with the button panels, then you should be fine. So what if you have to?
You just can’t [Editor: mild translation of the original text]. (Using Win7 Pro, NVDA, Firefox)
What is a better experience
Without assistive technology Assistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology:
- Block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. arrangement and easily adding blocks on the post
- Embedded any video or clip is too easy.So, now add media it’s not tedious anymore
- The main part is code option is we can add the shortcodes and other PHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. code directly. It’s so cool
- Display latest post via Widgets is too easy
- Add all HTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. element easily and mainly add and other tags which are very interesting.
- Easily move blocks with the up-down errors is too useful
- The look and feel of the visual editor are good and it is very easy to manage content and I think it’s time-saving for development.
What is worse
Without assistive technology:
- Aligning blocks and makes clicking into content areas are problematic.
- Having a whole section for Embeds of only tangential use seems clumsy.
- When I publish the post there is not a “VIEW” button available for that post edit screen of Gutenberg.
- If writing something in the text block and click on undo button it was removing the whole section instead of new word or sentence.
If I select any text from the content block then it’s selected the whole block for delete so, it’s considered my selection as deleting a block. For batter understanding, I have captured a video for the same.
With VoiceOver + Safari:
It was very difficult to navigate between blocks and options for formatting. If I have more than 2 blocks moving from one block to the other is a long way. I need to pass through each menu and button associated to the block. It is very tiring. Also, accessing options in the menus don’t respond well to VoiceOver commands. I was often redirected to other places in the page like “post settings” or “skip to main content” link.
The insert button it was not intuitive, it took me a while before finding how to insert a block image.
Insert link options buttons (enter, edit and erase) does not seem to have labels. VoiceOver announces them only like “button”.
When inserting a link, if I don’t type a URL address beginning with http://, Voiceover announces that the data is invalid. The insert link object keeps announcing “Enter a URL” like if any text were already typed. There is not a proper message to explain the user why the data is invalid or a placeholder (or something else) to show the expected input format.
What is impossible to do
Without assistive technology:
I think in current version changing the post format is impossible.
Not able to move “Separator” when blocks structure are typical. For better understanding, I have captured a video for the same.
There is always a placeholder “Write…” with text box it’s become confusing to add new block and it consumes one block space as well. For better understanding, I have captured a video for the same.
I have created a table and added data into it. Later I add the table in the same post the table will create with old table data automatically. If I delete the table from the post and later I add the table it will comes with the last data of the table.
With VoiceOver + Safari:
When editing text in a block, it is better to select an option in a menu before writing content. If text is already in the block, it is not possible to select it and then select an option in the menu to apply a format (like for example select a list, or bold or italic). I think it would be nice to have shortcuts for applying format without quitting the block. Something like selecting text and then using a shortcut for applying the desired format without having to navigate all the elements between the block and the menus.
Settings button does nothing when clicking on it.
With Windows 10 with Firefox and JAWS for Windows.
The post screen does not have a very intuitive layout. In visual mode the buttons to edit do not appear until after I begin to add content. I’m unclear on how or if I can change the level one heading for the title.
When I tab from the title field to what should be the content area I think I was adding a line of content. Upon pressing enter to start a new paragraph I was taken out of forms mode and completely lost on the page for a few minutes. I should not be taken out of forms mode in a content body text area type field.
I changed to the text mode, and while typing content was easier when I attempted to select text to make a link I saw no field to add a link like is currently present with the editor in 4.8.
At one point when I selected text to make a link and then pressed enter on the link button in text mode text I had entered disappeared. From reviews I’ve read it seems there are buttons that appear when I first enter a “block”, but using a screen reader I don’t know what those are.
I like to write blog posts and page content outside of WordPress using an editor like
Jarte. When I copied text out of Jarte in this test and went to paste it the experience was terrible. I cannot paste without losing all formatting. I also don’t understand “blocks”. Using TinyMCE I feel like I’m in a very accessible environment. With Gutenberg I want to stop blogging.
ON the Gutenberg page it says, “The goal of the block editor is to make adding rich content to WordPress simple and enjoyable.” Well I hate to say it, but as a power user of WordPress it makes adding rich content more complex for me.
I wrote two blog posts, or tried. With the first I used my normal copy editing process and had the post done and ready to go within an hour. WithGutenberg I was still trying to format the text correctly two hours later and had missing content that just disappeared. I gave up in frustration over the process
What don’t you understand
Without assistive technology:
I did not understand the work or use of the first button in post settings panel.
