In this episode, I'm chatting with Rian Rietveld. She is a Web Accessibility expert and leads the WordPress Accessibility Team. She is my first international guest, and lives in the Netherlands.

This is a topic I'm passionate about. I finally get to ask Rian all those questions that have been floating around in my head about Web Accessibility. Rian explains why it's important, and what we need to know. A complete transcript of this podcast is now available.

Meet Rian Rietveld
Rian is a WordPress engineer.

She has been developing for the web for over 17 years and focuses on web accessibility and usability.

She works at Human Made and leads the WordPress Accessibility Team to improve WordPress core.

Show Notes
Rian's Website: http://www.rianrietveld.com
Rian's Twitter link: Rian Rietveld
Helpful Links:

Accessible Ready Themes from WordPress.org
W3C Accessibility Standards
The A11Y Project - A community-driven effort to make web accessibility easier.
WordPress Accessibility Team - Useful Accessibility Tools and Plugins
wA11y - The Web Accessibility Toolbox
WP Accessibility Plugin
tota11y - an accessibility visualization toolkit
Accessible Ready Themes from WordPress.org
Utility Pro Accessible Genesis Theme by Carrie Dils

Rian also mentioned a Reader View available on most desktop browsers and mobile devices. I found the latest version of Safari has it. It is the first icon with horizontal lines in the location (URL) bar. I found an extension for Chrome called Reader View that offers that too.

Complete Transcript:

Open PDF version of this transcript

Jackie:
Hey everybody. This is Jackie D'Elia with Rethink.fm, the forward thinking podcast about web design and front end development in WordPress. Each episode I'll be talking with fellow designers and developers who are exploring new ways to approach and solve the challenges we face as our industry evolves. I've got questions so let's get started.
Welcome to Episode 7 of Rethink.fm with Rian Rietveld. We’ll be talking about Web Accessibility today, what you need to know and why it is important. Before we get started I just like to remind you, if you’re enjoying these episodes of Rethink.fm please head over to iTunes and leave a review. It really does help and I thank you very much for doing that. Let’s get started.

Jackie:
Hi Rian.

Rian:
Hi.

Jackie:
Thank you very much for joining me and I'm so happy that you're going to be talking about accessibility with us and things that you've been up to. For those who don't know you, would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Rian:
At the moment I'm a WordPress engineer and I work for Human Made. 25% of my time goes to WordPress Core. I improve with a team, the accessibility of WordPress Core for people with a disability or use the internet in another way most people do. I'm also part of Genesis Community, so I know you off that.

I live in the Netherlands with my son and my husband. I love to work in my garden. Anything else you need to know?

Jackie:
Oh, we're both gardeners. We both love gardening. Yes. I do too.

Rian:
Well, thank you for having me.

Jackie:
Thank you. First question for you is how did you get started with WordPress? Then how did that roll into your accessibility focus?

Rian:
I've been developing websites for 16, 17 years now. I started with just plain HTML pages and then I tried out some CMS's like PhpNuke,