Make All WordPress Events Accessible  🔗 **Source:** [Make All WordPress Events Accessible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qAh9x3Ax8) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [wordpress-accessibility, event-accessibility, wordcamp-organizing, disability-advocacy, live-captioning, venue-accessibility] > author: Joe Simpson Jr. > source: WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qAh9x3Ax8 > date created: 2026-09-08 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: Make All WordPress Events Accessible > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > - [🔄 Refactor Appendix](#-refactor-appendix--make-all-wordpress-events-accessible) > ### 🔗 References > - [Video: Make All WordPress Events Accessible (WordPress Accessibility Day 2025)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qAh9x3Ax8) > - [Make WordPress Accessible team](https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/) > - [WordCamp Organizer Handbook](https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer-handbook/) > - [W3C Web Accessibility Initiative](https://www.w3.org/WAI/) > - [WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 feedback form](https://2025.wpaccessibility.day/feedback) > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** Joe Simpson Jr. — front-end developer, WordCamp organizer, and member of the Make WordPress Accessible and Training teams — gave a talk at WordPress Accessibility Day 2025, moderated by Sherose Badruddin (Digital Accessibility Consultant, University of North Carolina), reframing "Make WordPress Accessible" (the software project) into "Make All WordPress Events Accessible" (the in-person and online gatherings the community runs). > - **Why it matters.** Joe opens with a heart-surgery story (two 100% blocked arteries, a 90-day medical leave) that reframed his priorities and led him back into WordPress community organizing; from there he lays out a checklist-driven, experience-tested method for building accessibility into venue selection, wayfinding, live captioning, speaker requirements, and event websites, based on his time organizing WordCamp US in San Diego and National Harbor and three Santa Clarita-area meetups. > - **Key stakeholders.** WordCamp/meetup organizers and organizing-team captains, the Make WordPress Accessible team, disabled community members who contributed specific fixes on the record — Michelle Frechette (venue-access account of Town and Country resort), Alex Stein (blind team member, wayfinding format), Ryan Bourne (distance badges, pre-recorded content), Meryl Evans and Rachel Lowenstein (speaker/attendee experience accounts) — and event sponsors who fund captioning vendors. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** Joe names budget as the recurring blocker: live captioning and ASL are the first things cut at low-budget meetups, and he treats Zoom's auto-caption-plus-manual-cleanup as a stopgap, not a solution. Venue accessibility decisions made without a physical, disability-aware tour (his Town and Country resort story) surface as post-event complaints instead of pre-event fixes. > - **Bottom line.** Accessibility work at WordPress events is operational, not aspirational: tour venues early with a disabled team member, publish wayfinding in at least three formats, staff a dedicated accessibility team distinct from Attendee Experience, and fund captioning as a line item rather than hoping a sponsor covers it. > ## 📖 Main Content > Joe Simpson Jr. structures the talk in three movements: a personal narrative establishing why he re-engaged with the WordPress community after a medical crisis, a practitioner's checklist for building accessibility into event planning (venue, wayfinding, speakers, website, live production), and a Q&A that surfaces budget as the real constraint behind every recommendation. > The opening narrative (t=171s–t=546s) covers a cardiac event, a 90-day medical leave, and a recovery built around hiking Santa Clarita Valley parks. Joe connects this directly to his original path into WordPress: after his agency's lead developer and CSS lead both left within 30 days of each other, he inherited a news blog built on WordPress and was sent to WordPress VIP's Intensive Developer Sessions in Napa, California, where a room of strangers helped him "spin up a virtual box" — the moment he says taught him what the WordPress community was. That memory, revisited during his leave, is what sent him to his first Meetup, into WordCamp LA volunteering, and eventually into starting three meetups (two in Santa Clarita, plus BlackPress) and organizing the first WordCamp north of LA and south of San Francisco since 2015 — whose third edition included the first WordCamp track dedicated to accessibility. > The practitioner section (t=610s–t=1852s) is the operational core: an equity-liaison story from his day job at Metro Los Angeles Transit sets up the framing that "accessibility is a floor, not a ceiling"; a short history lesson (Crip Camp, the Capitol Crawl, the ADA) grounds the advocacy in the disability rights movement; and the bulk of the talk works through his WordCamp US San Diego accessibility checklist (later published to Make) point by point — inclusive organizing teams, early venue tours with a disabled team member, multi-format wayfinding (graphic map, text-only turn-by-turn modeled on the National Braille Institute, video walkthrough), a dedicated accessibility team, distance badges (Ryan Bourne's suggestion), quiet/low-capacity viewing rooms, speaker slide requirements, and event-website basics (accessibility-ready theme, contrast, alt text). > The Q&A (t=1968s–end) is where budget constraints surface explicitly: Joe states plainly that lack of budget is the top reason ASL and live captioning aren't standard, and describes the low-budget workaround (Zoom auto-captions, manually cleaned up) versus the funded version (professional vendors like 3Play or White Coat Captioning). Sherose adds that the incoming ADA Title II ruling (effective April, applying to U.S. state entities like higher education and government offices) may create indirect momentum, though it doesn't bind WordCamps directly. > **Terms and context.** ADA = Americans with Disabilities Act (1990, discussed via the Capitol Crawl protest and the Crip Camp documentary). ASL = American Sign Language. "Craptions" is Joe's own term for low-quality auto-generated captions. The Make WordPress Accessible team is the official WordPress.org contributor team for accessibility work on WordPress core, distinct from the event-accessibility practices Joe describes, which live in the WordCamp Organizer Handbook. > **Uncertainties.** Joe cites "over 30 years" at Metro Los Angeles Transit in one place and "after 33 years" in another — the transcript does not resolve which figure is correct. The exact publication location of Michelle Frechette's Town and Country resort accessibility article is referenced but not linked on screen. The current live status of Joe's venue accessibility checklist inside the Organizer Handbook is asserted by Joe but not independently verified here. > ### 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [00:02:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qAh9x3Ax8&t=171s) Joe's medical crisis and 90-day leave > - Opens with a heart-surgery narrative: two 100% blocked arteries, told his daughter about surgery risk at the kitchen table the night before, decided not to burden her further because she was finishing her art-school portfolio. > - Recovery ran through Santa Clarita Valley parks — walking distance grew from 1 foot, to 10 feet, to a full lap, to reaching the summit o (Announcer) Thank you to our sponsors. Platinum Sponsor: Gravity Forms. Build accessible, powerful WordPress forms with Gravity Forms. Flexible tools for creators, developers, and teams of all sizes. Platinum Sponsor: WP Engine. WP Engine provides the most relied-upon and trusted WordPress products for businesses, brands, and agencies of all sizes. Platinum Sponsor: Woo. WooCommerce is the open-source e-commerce platform built on WordPress, helping merchants worldwide sell, manage, and grow their businesses. Gold Sponsors: Ally Web Accessibility; Equalize Digital: websites for everyone; GoDaddy; GreenGeeks Web Hosting; Yoast. Silver Sponsors: AAArdvark; CodeGeek, "Your Vision. Our Talent. One Team." Kinetic Iris; Kinsta; Pressable; Second Melody. Bronze Sponsors: 9 Planets Hosting; Engage; Draw Attention; Multidots; NerdPress; Osom Studio; OZeWAI – Australian Web Accessibility Initiative; Progress Planner; QualityLogic; Sharp; Simply Schedule Appointments; SiteGround; StellarWP; Termageddon; WebYes. (Sherose Badruddin) Welcome to WordPress Accessibility Day 2025. My name is Sherose Badruddin, and I'm a Digital Accessibility Consultant with the University of North Carolina. Thank you for joining us for Make All WordPress Events Accessible, presented by Joe A. Simpson Jr. Joe is a front-end web developer and UX designer specializing in accessible enterprise-level WordPress solutions. When a hard event forced him to take a leave of absence, he attended his first Meetup, beginning an incredible eight-year journey that included giving back to the WordPress community in roles ranging from volunteer, speaker, team rep, Contributor Day table lead, Community Summit moderator, WordCamp lead organizer at both the local and flagship levels, and he started three WordPress meetups, including two in Santa Clarita and BlackPress with two automaticians. After three decades as a public servant at Metro Los Angeles Transit, managing their blog network, he retired to present topics on WordPress and open-source tech in emerging and underrepresented communities around the world. Please feel free to add your questions in the Zoom Q&A section, and we'll answer them at the end of the session. You can use the chat to connect with other attendees. (Joe) I was laid out flat on a cold, hard operating table, similar to the one that you see here, and as the anesthesiologist put the mask on, I began to count backwards. 100, 99, 98. As I slowly drifted off to sleep, all I could think about were these faces. Just yesterday, I was seated at the kitchen table, my wife here, my daughter to my left, and I had to do the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. We decided not to tell my daughter about the surgical procedure because she was in the final year of high school. She was preparing her portfolio to go to art school. She was a creative, just like her dad, and we didn't want to interrupt that. It was at the same kitchen table where I would sit her on the table as a child, a little toddler, and she would jump into my arms. I would take a step back, she would jump again, and we would do it over and over and over again. But on this day, I had to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I had to tell her that there was a possibility that I wouldn't be coming home tomorrow at this time. As I came to and left the hospital, I decided to take a leave of absence, a 90-day leave of absence to heal physically and mentally. I had two 100% blocked arteries, and it would take all that I had to get back. I wanted to rediscover things that gave me creative joy, and I wanted to define a new journey, but just getting out of bed was difficult. My road back led me to the outdoors. I visited every outdoor park in Santa Clarita Valley, putting one foot in front of the other till 1 foot became 10 feet, which became a quarter of a lap, then a full lap, until one day, I was at the base of the hill that you see on your right. At the top of this hill, it was the highest point in the Santa Clarita Valley at Central Park. I decided before I went back to work in 90 days that I would get to the top of this hill, but 5 days before I returned to work in December, this is the view that I saw just before sunrise, overlooking the Santa Clarita Valley. You may be wondering, "What the heck does this have to do with WordPress Accessibility Day?" If today were my last day, would I be doing what I'm doing? If the answer was "No" too many days in a row, I'd make a change. During my 90 days, I wanted to truly give back and continue to grow creatively, and I thought back. When I first learned WordPress, our lead developer and our CSS goddess both left our agency within 30 days of each other, and I inherited our news blog that was done in WordPress. We had budget to do some learning, and they sent me to the WordPress VIP Intensive Developer Sessions that were being held in Napa, California. On the first day, during the event, they asked us to spin up a virtual box, pull my jaw up off the floor. Something amazing happened. Everybody in arm's distance offered to help, and that's how I learned what the WordPress community was. When I was on my leave, I thought back to that time, and I was thinking, "I really want to give back to the WordPress community, recreate that feeling that I got." I decided to go to my first Meetup. At that first Meetup, the organizing team from WordCamp Los Angeles was there, and they needed volunteers, so I volunteered, which was an incredible experience, and the ball got rolling. In addition to attending my first meetup, I went to over 20 meetups over the next three months in all 5 counties in Los Angeles, from Inland Empire, San Diego, Northern Los Angeles County. I attended my first WordCamp in Riverside. I attended WordCamp US virtually. I did anything and everything in the WordPress space. I was tired of getting home at 10:30, eleven o'clock at night, driving all over Southern California, and I decided to start a meetup. I didn't start one; I started three. I began to think, "Hey, I want to organize a WordCamp," and we organized the first WordCamp north of Los Angeles and south of San Francisco since 2015. One of the crowning moments, the thing that I'm really most proud of, is that our third edition, we had the very first WordCamp to have a dedicated track to accessibility. We had about 14 speakers, which you see here on screen, and it was an incredible achievement. There's so many talented and passionate people in the community, and this was sort of all that energy that we were generating. In December, I decided to leave Metro. After 33 years, I wanted to find out what was next in my journey. One of the things that I wanted to do was I wanted to give back to the WordPress community that had given me so much, and I decided I wanted to present open-source and technology topics to emerging and underrepresented communities all around the world. I presented at WordCamp Asia in Taiwan. I presented at WordCamp San José in Costa Rica, and I want to continue to do that moving forward, But first, a little bit about me. My name is Joe Simpson, Jr. I'm a SiteGround ambassador. I'm a community leader in WordPress, and roles varying from volunteer, team rep, and member on the Make Accessible and training teams, to speaker, to lead organizer. I worked in public transportation for over 30 years at Metro Los Angeles, the third largest transportation agency in the nation, managing a blog network of over 14 WordPress sites. Prior to that, working for Fortune 500 companies in the corporate identity and branding space at Unisys and Chrysler corporations during major merger and reorganizations. I'm an advocate for accessibility and user experience. We all may know what Make WordPress Accessible means, but I want to take a twist on that and suggest that we Make All WordPress Events Accessible. First, my slides are available in multiple formats. I have a follow-along slide deck that's very basic with just the text that's provided in these slides, if you want to follow along there, as well as I'll provide a link to the slides, which is here. I'll give you a second to scan if you'd like to follow along, as well as a link to a document where all of these links are going to be. I always like to provide a couple of ways to take in these slides. Accessibility is a floor, not a ceiling. The common things that you hear about accessibility, the point of these bullets is that we all eventually grow into a disability of one form or another, and we should all be open and honest about making sure that the spaces that we work in, the spaces that we WordPress in are accessible and open. I share this slide because I was part of an equity liaison at Metro, and it was an 18-month program where we sort of looked at transportation topics in terms of making them as equitable as possible for all of the communities that we service. Our team project was equitable transportation, and one of the team members, she thought that our presentation should only address people that were deaf. I shared this with her to show her the number of disabilities and that we would have to address in our presentation. Here's a little bit of history. During the pandemic, there was an incredible documentary that came out, and I think, especially in today's climate, it's important to know about the history of accessibility, especially as our current administration is making a lot of drastic changes to how government functions, and a lot of people are worried that it's going to impact accessibility. I like to give you a little bit of history in hopes that it will help inform the choices that you make going forward. Crip Camp was a documentary on Netflix during the pandemic. It followed a group of young teenagers who attended a camp in upstate New York, and it was amazing because this group of kids eventually changed the world. Back then, if you had a disability, chances were you could have been committed. Went on to college and they began to do great things. They began to do sit-ins, advocate for the rights of those with disabilities, catch buses or trains, enter buildings, so many things in the physical world provided barriers that they just couldn't get around and bring awareness to the public at large about the changes that were needed, and one of the incredible things, they were influenced by the Civil Rights Movement that had happened in the '60s and '70s. One of the landmark events in terms of their protests was the Capitol Crawl, where a number of folks with disabilities tried to enter the Capitol as part of their protest, and they climbed the stairs. Back then, buildings weren't accessible, so the only way you can get into a building were stairs to access if you couldn't walk upstairs. It created so much momentum, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. We are the stewards of where accessibility can go from here, and especially in the WordPress space, you can make a difference. If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. One of the things that I'm proud of was that during my time on the organizing team, as a captain for WordCamp US in San Diego, I compiled a list of things that I thought would make our event accessible, and I list them out in bullet points, and my team mentor, or one of the leads for WordCamp US that year, she took that information and published it on Make so that other events or other WordCamps could utilize this information. Here are some of the bullet points from it. It's a little more involved in terms of a document, and I'll share the link. It's at the end of the slides. I'll share the link so that you can get in and utilize that as well, but these are some of the key points. When you're organizing a team, try to be as inclusive as possible in terms of the people that you invite to organize, the volunteers, and speakers. They offer perspectives that you may not have. Offer a seat at the table for outspoken voices as resources, collaborators, and inspiration. One of the things that I pride myself on is that in the WordPress space, there are so many important and eclectic voices. People are always sharing their information with each other. People are always trying to help each other, so I try to incorporate as many of those voices in the decisions that I make in terms of organizing event. I also suggest you leverage pre-existing efforts. There's articles and information. There's things on Make. There's things on the blog that you can tap into to help you make informed decisions. The other cool thing that happened was when I published that document, and again, I'll share a link in my resource slides, people started to reach out to me through Slack on the Make channel. One of the first things that I always suggest if you're planning an event like a WordCamp is to scout the venue. A lot of times, a decision on a venue is made without touring the venue, or maybe it's without touring the venue with people that are aware of accessibility and can look at the venue in terms of how accessible it is, and if there are any issues that need to be addressed that could be major problems in terms of the event. One of the stories that I like to share was when I was on the team as a captain for WordCamp US, when it was in San Diego, it was at a really incredible location. It was a retro resort called Town and Country. It had the '50s vibe. The architecture looked like it was from the '50s modernist. Unfortunately, it was one of the worst conferences in terms of the venue being accessible, and there were a number of problems in terms of accessibility. Michelle Frechette wrote an incredible article on the experiences that she had trying to get in doorways, there were no elevators, things like that. I try to take this information in, and I try to use it in terms of the events that I organize. Again, tour the venue as early as possible, ideally with someone that has a disability. Get the physical venue for things that may be an issue. Are the entrances open? Are they wide enough? Bathrooms, conference spaces, auditoriums, do they have paddles, handles, and counter heights that are accessible to someone in an assistive device? Here's some pictures from my time as a lead organizer for WordCamp US when it was in National Harbor. We took a tour of the venue early. We asked lots of questions. Also took us to the hotel room, which I'll show you some more pictures in a second. The main area of every conference is "How do you get into the venue?" It gave you specs on doorway widths. Again, a lot of the things that someone with an assistive device or disability wouldn't be impacted by. Looking at the front entrance for doorways, automatic doors, paddles, and it was really cool that on the day I took the picture, someone in an assistive device was leaving the venue. Also, stairs, escalators, elevators in relation to conference rooms, dining area, sponsor hall, and your hotel rooms. Also, the speaker spaces, stage heights, how the chairs were being laid out, the aisleways, things of that nature, lighting. In terms of the hotel, we also toured the hotel with the representative from the event space. This hotel had accessible rooms, so we looked at the variety of accessibility rooms, and it impacted how we made decisions. In terms of wayfinding for your events, always provide basic, simple maps and signage. I would say avoid venue-provided or "designed" pieces that the venue may provide. One of the things I remember about WordCamp US and National Harbor was that the information that they provided was "designed" so that meant there were tiny light gray-type colors that had color contrast issues, et cetera, et cetera. I basically recreated some of the maps, which I'll show you in a second. Provide wayfinding in multiple formats. Again, most WordCamps have a map of the venue, but it's a graphic like a JPEG or a PDF, which isn't accessible. Provide it in multiple formats, and I'll talk a little bit about that in a second. One thing that I did, and I think it may have been a first, was to offer common path maps and descriptions to key event spaces. I'll talk about that in a second, but also, please place clear, concise signage at key areas and spots along common path. This is an example of a common path map that I did. I took a lot of the printed brochures that they provided to us as an organizing team, and I redrew maps, and I listed the common pathways for our event, entering the building to get to the registration desk, from the registration desk to your room, from your room to the conference space, from your room to the dining room, from your room to the sponsor area. I provided that in a visual format, but also, one of our team members was blind. Alex Stein was on the team that year, and he attended a conference at the National Braille Institute. Their site had extensive directions that were turn-by-turn. Directions were in a text format. I went in, and I did the same for our venue. What you see here is how to get from the main entrance to the resort registration, in terms of text format. The cool thing was that the venue had an app. Again, the app wasn't accessible. I took that information and turned it into a document that we placed on the website. It was in a text-only format. Also, we provided a video walkthrough. Someone on the team did that wayfinding for our attendees to use. We had at least three ways to figure out the location of the venue. I would also suggest getting this information up as early as possible because, again, you want to provide all attendees as much information as possible on getting to the venue, getting around the venue, so they can make decisions on whether they can make it, or they can provide suggestions or tips on how we can make the information better. The picture you see here was from our WordCamp in 2019 in Santa Clarita. I show you this picture. This building was very accessible, even back in 2019. It was a newer facility, better technology, better open spaces. I show you this picture because there were two people from our community that you see in the front row here. They had assistive devices. The room was set up so that they can just wheel in, riding assistive devices into the room, park them out of the way. We also had someone that was doing the captions for the videos in place, so it was a space that was open to as many people as possible. Does your hotel block or venue offer a variety of accessible rooms? Will your venue or organizing team provide support in terms of on-call texting or services to assist disabled? One member of the team, and what I was proud of as well as one of the organizers, I suggested we have a dedicated accessibility team as one of the core teams on a WordCamp. Generally, accessibility is part of attendee experience, so we work closely with them, but we also wanted to have more direct input on all the teams in terms of suggesting accessible fixes or things in terms of accessibility practices that we wanted to see throughout the event. When I posted my suggestions on Make for making events accessible, I heard from someone named Ryan Bourne, who, disability, and he suggested a number of ways that we can make WordCamp US accessible, and again, I love collaborating. I love learning, so he suggested a number of things that we were able to incorporate as well. He has issues in large crowds, so he suggested offering distance badges to let attendees know your level of comfort in terms of being around other people. We implemented that. Also, I mentioned we work closely with the Attendee Experience Team, and then also, I would suggest briefing other teams, like the volunteers, on accessibility-specific instructions in terms of how the event should go. The event live stream. Offer low-capacity viewing rooms or quiet rooms for neurodivergent attendees, live captioned program presentations, and consider using ASL for at least a keynote. Offer pre-recorded content for neurodivergent attendees. This was another suggestion by Ryan, in that some people may not feel comfortable in larger crowds. The lower-capacity viewing rooms are there for them as well, but they may want to watch from home, so offer some of the sessions as pre-recorded content, so maybe offer the keynote or the closing remarks in a recorded format. Another thing that's good in terms of usability is providing time points on YouTube videos to allow people to jump around quickly. That's, again, something that I would suggest as a nicety. In terms of the speaker slides that are provided, this event has some really great speaker slide requirements that help make our slides as open and accessible as possible. For your speakers in the slides, verbally describe your graphics or images while speaking. Caption, add ALT text or descriptions to all your images. Make your presentation slides available online. Make your presentation slides available before, during, and after your presentation so that people can refer back to them and use your information to affect others. In terms of the event website, and I've seen some interesting websites for WordCamp, test all your posts or pages for accessibility. Start with an accessibility-ready theme. Avoid low-color contrast text and designs. Add proper ALT text to all your images, including social media messaging. (Joe) As the last suggestion, I would suggest you contribute. I would urge you to contribute. Join the team at Make WordPress Accessible. These are some resources to join the team because testers are always needed. They're making lots of incredible accessibility improvements to the open-source project, and we need people to test. These are links to the various pieces of information. These are links for the team, office hours, bug scrubs, which happen weekly, team meetings, which happen every other week. There's also a link to the calendar for all of the teams, as well as a contributor wizard, which walks you through. It helps you find out which team is right for you. It helps you join Slack and set up your profile on WordPress.org, and they also have a course, a basic level course, to get you onboarded and up and running if you've never done any contributing before. Again, I would urge you to help Make WordPress Accessible. Here are some links that I love to share in terms of digging deeper into the subject that I'm talking about today. There's also a document similar to what I'm talking about today by the Web Accessibility Initiative on making events accessible. I would urge you to take a look at that, as well as they also have one on the accessibility of remote meetings. One of the things that we do in the WordPress space is we meet virtually. How do we make sure that our Zoom meetings are as accessible as possible? There's also my venue accessibility checklist, which is there. It's my first steps as part of the WordPress Organizer Handbook. There's links to a couple of clips from the Crip Camp documentary on how ADA and the team behind Crip Camp, the Americans with Disabilities Act changed the built world and so many things that we take for granted now, even though there's always room for improvement. It talks about back in the '60s, there was a documentary that appeared on national television that showed the disgusting conditions that a lot of kids that were disabled were living in in the US, and it helped change and create some impetus to change and make real change in terms of accessibility. Also, there's a couple of great stories by a couple of people I respect in the community. Meryl Evans shared her experience in presenting at South by Southwest and things that she suggested they improve, as well as Rachel Lowenstein did the same as well, in terms of seeing the event from a person with a neurodivergent disability. (Joe) I'll leave you with this quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates. "I'm all for bridging gaps, but not at the expense of my neighbor's humanity." Be steadfast in your advocacy for an open and inclusive WordPress event space, and please take care of each other. By being part of today, you've taken the first step towards changing the WordPress products, services, and environments that you create for your communities and clients. I'm so excited to hear about what you do in the future, and I would love to hear about it. You can find me on any of these social media platforms by searching for Joe Simpson Jr. For example, joesimpsonjr@gmail or instagram.com/joesimpsonjr. We're in the early planning stages for WordCamp Santa Clarita Valley, and you can find out more about that by joining our local community here at WordPressSCV as we learn and share more about WordPress together. Thank you for joining me during WordPress Accessibility Day. It's truly an honor to be here. As a fan, I've watched the event grow in scope and stature, and it's an incredible testament to the incredible organizers of this event. I thank you for having me. As promised, here are my slides. (Joe) Here's the resource links in a doc file. (Joe) Now I'd like to open it up to questions. (Sherose Badruddin) Hey, Joe. Thank you so much for your very moving and informative presentation. I see that you've been answering some questions in the Q&A, and we have time if the audience would like to ask more questions in the Q&A. What I'd like to do is read the questions that you've answered, and if you would, just read the answers that you wrote. (Joe) Sure. (Sherose) Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so the first one was, what are the most accessible maps that you use on websites? (Joe) Right, and as I mentioned in the presentation, you have to go about it in multiple ways. What we did in addition to the PDFs and the standard JPEG graphics or PNGs that you get on WordCamp sites, we did the text-only, turn-by-turn, and it was cool that at that venue, they had an app. It was very inaccessible, but it at least provided directions on the front door to the check-in area, the front door. We were able to take that information and turn it into a text-only version that we put up on the website. That's another one. That's a little bit of work. I would say we did a video walkthrough as well, so try to provide that information in as many formats as possible. Try to get that information up as soon as possible. Again, one of the great bits of wisdom that I got from people that I worked with, I would contact Joe Dolson or people along the Make channels. Joe mentioned getting that information up as early as possible so that people can make an informed decision. I would try to get all that information up as soon as possible in those formats because a couple of those things took quite a while, but if you've got a team helping you, you can get as much up as early as possible to give people that knowledge so they can make a decision on whether they can attend or not. (Sherose) Yes, a strong, proactive strategy. Thank you. Before I go on to the next question, I want to make sure that the audience knows Joe's slides can be found on his session page. Okay. The next question we had here was, what accessibility needs are often overlooked in online events beyond, like standard digital accessibility? This was a good question. What was your answer? (Joe) Okay. Generally, most meetups or WordCamps may not have ASL or captioning built into the process. I would say that's probably the biggest thing. One of the biggest reasons is that there's no budget for it. I would say if I could snap my fingers and magically change one thing that would really impact it is make it mandatory, make it a part of every foundation, effort in a meetup space or in a WordCamp space has that built in. One of the cool suggestions that Ryan gave me was, if you're having an event, try to prerecord some stuff and get it up ahead of time. Try to provide it in as many formats. People that may not, if they're in a certain space and they don't like being around, they feel uncomfortable in large crowds, give them a quiet room or somewhere, where they can watch or have that content, where they can watch it from home. Again, it takes doing things in different formats and in different ways that you may not be used to, to make it as accessible, and it's open to as many people as possible. I think we always try to plan the events that we like, but I always try to think of how someone else would need to consume that information. Again, making ASL captioning part of every event and have it fully funded would be my suggestion. (Sherose) I hear you, and I hear what you mean when you say, like, if you could snap your fingers and make that mandatory. I wonder, with the ADA Title II ruling that goes into effect in April, that's just in the United States, that applies to state entities, like higher education, government offices. I wonder if that'll initiate or at least, start-- initiate, yes, initiate's the word. I'm thinking momentum towards a culture change to that effect. I feel like what you're describing here doesn't seem like that what you do is complicated, really. It's just thoughtful, right? Yes, so it's doable. (Joe) Yes, and I think just making people, and I think people that are here today, all of the content or all the information that you're receiving, you take that back to your community or your projects or the people that you interact with, and just being aware and making other people aware is the first step. You also have the knowledge of doing specific things that can make a difference. Then one of the things that I really enjoyed about, like in talking about my journey, and I do it in a dramatic way, was I wanted to get in those rooms to help make those decisions, because I was thinking about that stuff all the time. Like, when we did our WordCamps back locally, those are things that I took to the flagship level. Just being in the room and armed with this knowledge can make a big difference. (Sherose) Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, I'll move on to the next question. What tips do you have for small local events like meetups? -I feel like [crosstalk] -it goes back. (Joe) It was funny, because each question that came in, it's the same thing, especially now, as budgets are tightening and things like that. There should be a baseline for providing certain things. If you really want people to learn WordPress and learn about accessibility, you have to have all the tools available. Making it as open and inclusive as possible is a big thing. I know in our community in Santa Clarita, there's a couple of incredible people that I always shout out that made, brought accessibility to everyone's mind, and so everything that we do and think about has that accessibility slant. Yes, so I would say just try to keep the pressure on, and I think that leads into our next question. Try to make it second nature and making people commit to it. (Sherose) I think for that question, though, it leads into essentially, like, higher level buy-in, right? Like, you could be the organizer, but what kind of problems would someone who is, like, let's say on a committee to organize, what kind of things would they might face as a budget? They might not have control over it. What would be, like considerations? What is a pitch essentially to-- What is the pressure? How do you articulate that? (Joe) Well, for me, and I didn't want to be the pain in the butt, it's to just be a part of the conversation as early as possible. I think a lot of times when you're getting near a month out or six weeks out, that could be too late to make the kind of impact that you really need for your audience. Again, at the beginning of the process, I was asking, hey, you're thinking of doing video, are we going to do this? One of the things that I wanted to do at WordCamp US the last time I was an organizer was to make sure that on every stage there was a ramp. Make sure that every stage had a large screen next to it with the captioning right there next to the person, because a lot of times, you'll only see a screen with slides, but you won't see, there may be a tiny bit at the top or the bottom. I was just trying to make things as present and as big as possible. Again, I was in the room, and from the very beginning, I was like, hey, I want to be in on the tour. I want to help here. I want to do this. As early as possible and as much possible pressure that you can put on this, not really like pressure, pressure, but as long as you're part of the discussion, that can make a difference. (Sherose) A figure of speech I always hear is, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that means that whatever's making the most noise gets the attention. I can see how it makes sense, even if you're not at an organizer level, that if you see something that could be made better to go ahead and say something about it as soon as you notice, and work to protect it. (Joe) Plus, you can leverage. A lot of the people that are organizing at the lead level, they've seen and done a lot of this stuff. One of the cool things was that during US, I was suggesting things, and one of the team members suggested, hey, you could do captions this way in a way that I hadn't thought of. Again, it's not an adversarial position. Really it's a collaboration. I love jazz music. I think of all this stuff that I do as collaborating with people that are talented. I think if I'm working with John Coltrane on this or Dizzy Gillespie on that kind of thing. To me, I always come in with that level of learning or wanting to learn, as well as just collaborating with people that I could learn from. (Sherose) Those are flattering comparisons, Joe, very flattering. Another question we have, and we have time for a few more, if someone's thinking of questions, what is the most practical way to handle live captioning for small, low budget events? (Joe) Right, and I saw that by Amber as well. One of the things, and it's not ideal, but again, it's like patching it together. It does take a little bit of rolling your sleeves up, elbow grease, like if you're in a Zoom session on your Meetup, for example, I usually use a captioning that's on Zoom now. It'll record a transcript, or the AI does a transcript of the meeting summary. The transcript, I saved that down when you record the video, and then I proofread it and tweak it, so that it's more accurate. Because one of the downsides to live captioning or using caption is that it makes a lot of "craptions" or mistakes. I try to go in and clean that up and then bundle that with the video to provide an accurate captioning for the video. Most of us don't have a sponsor or budget. That's the low budget version of it. Ideally, if we had a sponsor involved with our group or something like that, I try to lean on them to get a little more money so that we can have actual professionals do it. (Sherose) Yes, that makes sense. I feel like if you're organizing something with, again, no sponsor, no budget, it's the first time and you got to prove yourself, you may have to rely on automatic captioning. Zoom's automatic captioning, I would say, is better and better every time I check it out. They get my name right, which is challenging. That's how I judge any automatic captions ability. Yes, you're right. Then afterwards, sharing this, and that actually leads me to my next question. You've shared a ton of proactive strategies. You mentioned a few things to do afterwards, but could you expand a bit on what post-event things folks can do? (Joe) Oh, after the event. With WordCamp generally take, as an organizer, most local events, they tell you to plan six months in advance. Or like on the flagship level, they usually start a year out. The first thing I would do is once you'll do like a recap at the end of the meeting, try to have that as soon as possible and get as much information from surveys, attendees as possible. One of the coolest experiences I had at US, in National Harbor was, I was walking around the sponsor area. There was a gentleman that we just struck up a conversation outside one of the exhibits. He was saying, I really wish I could have gone to the after party, but the music was too loud. It would have been really cool if they had a quiet space nearby so I could fill a part of the group. To me, once you do a recap after your Meetup or your event, just make sure you try to take as many notes as possible. I'm here in Ottawa right now for WordCamp Canada, and I've just been going around talking to people about things that I want to incorporate in my next event. That's the way I try to be proactive. I make a wish list. I try to take in any complaints or concerns, and I try to leverage that and use it next time. I try to do that as far in advance as possible. I also reach out to members of the foundation or someone that's going to be a prospective mentor and get their input on things as well. (Sherose) Yes, so what I'm hearing from you is like, aside from sharing content afterwards, you're also saying that it would be ideal to follow up with attendees and to be paying attention during the events to note issues, and to spread that work out across your team. (Joe) Yes. One thing I try never to do is like a lot of times as an organizer, you may feel like it's a lot of stress and you don't want to hear people complain, but you really need to be available and to be open to criticism, but also to make sure that you're going to act on it and make sure that you reassure that person that, hey, your comments are important, your concerns are important, and we're going to act on them when we have the opportunity to. (Sherose) Yes. Thank you. I want to just go back one, when we were talking about like a live captioning. The follow-up question was like specifically though for live events, how are we doing live captioning in a practical way? I wanted to add my answer, and Joe, you can answer this as well. Finding a live captioner and negotiating with them is pretty much what you can do. My institution works frequently with several vendors. The one we work with most often is 3Play We have a contract with them that allows us to negotiate a different rate that would be more expensive if it was just one thing that they live captioned for us. (Sherose) That was my advice. (Joe) Oh, that's awesome. (Sherose) Yes. I'm really not sure because if you're low budget, it's a common situation. I imagine if someone wants to work with you, they'll find a way to make that work. (Joe) I'll find out this go around, like I mentioned in my slides, we're going to do a WordCamp Santa Clarita. Back in the previous events that I've done as an organizer, there was White Coat Captioning for all of our events, and that was part of the budget. I don't know how it works. Moving forward, I'll find out a little bit more tomorrow when I talk to the WordCamp Canada folks. You'll have that baseline level, but like I said, it would be great to have someone ASL on stage. Ideally, just imagine if Matt's State of the Word or his town hall had someone on stage doing ASL, that would be incredible. That level of accessibility is something that I hope for one day. Again, those are things that I hope happens, but having a baseline that you could build on is very important. (Sherose) I've got about 20 seconds, so I'm going to try to read this quickly, and I want you to answer it with whatever time I leave you. Can you share an in-person event that was well prepared for accessibility? Same question for online event. Good luck, 20 seconds. (Joe) Well, I would say the last time around at WordCamp US, I felt like we did a pretty good job. Generally during a WordCamp, there are certain teams. We had an accessibility team, which is a brand new team. Like I said, Michelle Frechette was on team, Alex Stein. We tried to incorporate people whose voices were out in the community, sometimes in a negative way to try to help build a better experience. I would say that was probably the best one, and hopefully my next one will be the best one. (Sherose) Excellent, and then I'll just pitch for an online event to answer that question. WordPress Accessibility Day is very welcome. (Joe) Oh, and I was getting--, and I always give props, Amber is doing so many incredible things. Like she's been everywhere. I'm so looking forward to her conversation with Matt, because it's sort of everything full circle. [crosstalk] (Sherose) Right. She's really doing quite a bit. Thank you so much, Joe, for your presentation. I want to thank our audience for attending this session with Joe. You can continue the conversation in the chat or on social media using the #WPA11yday and #WPAD2025. We also appreciate it if you go to 2025.wpaccessibility.day/feedback to provide anonymous feedback for our speakers on their presentation. That space, you can enter to win a t-shirt while you're there. Now you can stay tuned for Auditing WordPress Plugin Accessibility: A Practical Journey From Code to Compliance. That's our next session coming up with Osdeibi Acurero. That will be at 1 UTC. While you're waiting, don't forget to visit our sponsors pages to grab virtual swag and enter a chance to win great prizes. See you in the next session., Make All WordPress Events Accessible, Joe Simpson Jr., 01m21cz02wsape5pbpd06pjxj4.