As a website development company, I attended the WordPress Accessibility Day 2026 online conference in order to stay current on the best practices and software for making sure websites and online documents are accessible to those with disabilities.
In addition to the technical information provided, I also appreciated the variety of perspectives. The presenters addressed everything from website design and PDF accessibility to the policies and behind-the-scenes processes that determine whether people can actually get the information they need.
Just to add my perspective, I have a team that creates wordpress accessible websites manually with research and testing using AI. And after using many of the standard PDF remediation companies, I’ve settled on using the VORA dashboard by ADAcomplyPDF because of its strong remediation engine mixed with its file sorting and its free accessibility editor and built in screen reader for testing. I wanted to check this against any other services to make sure we were using the best pdf remediation system for our clients.
With this goal in mind, several presentations stood out to me, which I shared below.
A Website That Looks Fine May Not Work for Everyone
Steve Jones, Owner and CTO of Equalize Digital, demonstrated why website accessibility requires looking beyond how a page appears at a normal screen size.
People with low vision may enlarge text or zoom a browser to 200%, 300%, or even 400%. If a website's layout is too rigid, text can overlap, buttons can disappear, and content can be cut off.
One particularly useful takeaway was that developers should test websites at 400% zoom, not simply assume a responsive design will handle it. Layouts need to adapt as text grows, rather than forcing people to scroll horizontally or hunt for content that has disappeared.
This is something we hadn’t thought to do with our website builds, but will incorporate it now.
The PDF Problem: When Information Is There but People Can't Access It
Rinitta Rajeev, an accessibility specialist with Ally Group, addressed the challenge of organizations with accessible websites that still publish meeting minutes, reports, forms, etc. that people with disabilities cannot read.
A PDF needs an underlying structure that identifies headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, and images. Without that structure, a screen reader may read the information in the wrong order, miss important content, or struggle to navigate the document at all.
A chart labeled simply “Chart,” for example, tells a blind reader very little. A useful description might explain that quarterly revenue increased from $8.2 million to $12.4 million. The goal isn't merely to identify an image; it's to communicate the information the image conveys.
I was pleased to see that the problems that Rinitta mentioned were ones that my current PDF remediation software from adacomplypdf.com resolves, including the human check and edit feature after automated remediation is complete, and then testing with a screen reader if desired. She mentioned that there are a lot of pdf remediation options (I agree, and have likely tried most of them), but the VORA Dashboard checked every box she mentioned, and it’s easy and intuitive to use whether a company is using Common Look or completely outsourcing the work. By the way, this is not a paid endorsement. It’s just my experience with looking for the best, easiest, most affordable and accurate way to make sure my clients are able to provide accessible documents to their audiences and markets.
An Accessibility Statement Is Only as Good as the Help Behind It
Adam Unger and Julian De Los Prados, co-founders of Accessibilities, shared a finding that I found particularly revealing.
Their research examined 5,237 accessibility policy pages. According to their presentation, 23% of the pages led to errors, while 72% of the live pages lacked a meaningful process for handling accessibility requests.
Think about what that means. Someone encounters a barrier on a website, searches for help, and finds an accessibility statement. But the link doesn't work, or the only contact is a generic email address that nobody has been assigned to monitor.
The organization may have an accessibility statement, but the person still has no practical way to get help.
Adam and Julian recommended a more useful approach: assign a responsible person, provide accessible ways to make contact, establish a clear response timeframe, test that requests actually reach someone, and explain how unresolved concerns can be escalated.
I especially liked the practical nature of this advice. An organization doesn't have to begin with an elaborate new system. It can start by testing its own contact process and making sure someone is accountable for responding. I will be recommending this to my clients.
A Small Change in WordPress Could Make a Big Difference
Caroline Desrosiers, founder and CEO of Scribely, discussed a promising development in WordPress 7.0: the ability to use image metadata to help populate alternative text in the Media Library.
The idea is straightforward but valuable. Photographers and content creators may already have descriptive information embedded in image files. When that information is preserved and used by WordPress, it can reduce repetitive work and make it easier to carry accessibility information from one system to another.
For organizations managing large libraries of images, that could be a significant improvement.
There is an important qualification, however: automated descriptions still need human review (another example of why I like adacomplypdf.com ‘s VORA Dashboard). The right description depends on the purpose of the image and the context in which it appears. A photograph might need one description in a news article and another when used to explain a particular point in a report.
Technology can make accessibility work more efficient, but good judgment remains essential.
This is a theme that ran through several of the presentations: automation can help us do more, but it works best when paired with knowledgeable people who understand the needs of the end user.
What These Presentations Have in Common
Although the speakers covered very different subjects, I saw a common thread.
Accessibility isn't one feature that can be added to a website and forgotten. It involves the design of the site, the way content is created, the documents that are published, the tools used to manage information, and the people responsible for maintaining everything over time.
A website can pass an automated scan and still create barriers. A PDF can look beautiful and still lack the structure a screen reader needs. An accessibility policy can sound reassuring but fail the moment someone actually needs assistance.
For those of us who build websites or help organizations make their digital information accessible, the responsibility is to look at the whole experience—not just the parts that are easiest to measure.
A Conference That Put Accessibility Into Practice
I also appreciated the effort that went into making the conference itself accessible. WordPress Accessibility Day brought together a global audience for a full 24 hours of education, with live captions and American Sign Language interpretation helping make the sessions available to more people.
The conference was free to attend, and its volunteer organizers worked alongside speakers, interpreters, captioners, and sponsors to make it possible.
This deserves recognition. Accessibility education should be available to the people who need it, and sharing practical knowledge is one of the ways the entire community gets better.
Thank you to the presenters—Steve Jones, Rinitta Rajeev, Adam Unger, Julian De Los Prados, Caroline Desrosiers, and the many other speakers who contributed their expertise. Each brought a different perspective to a challenge that affects all of us.
I also want to recognize the sponsors, including Equalize Digital, Gravity Forms, Insi, Kinsta, and WP Engine, along with the other supporting organizations and individual donors. Their contributions help make events like this possible, including the accessibility services that allow more people to participate.
And after listening to hours of content on accessibility systems, I want to thank the builders of the VORA Dashboard for thinking of the big picture and creating a system for remediating PDF’s that checks all the boxes. I feel confident recommending adacomplypdf.com to my clients.
Everyone who helps make accessibility easier deserves credit for bringing people together.
Taking What We Learn and Putting It to Work
At Guello Marketing, we are committed to continued learning and improving how we serve our clients. For a business, nonprofit, school, or public agency, accessibility is ultimately about people being able to find information, complete tasks, and participate without unnecessary barriers.
Sometimes the solution is a better website layout. Sometimes it's a properly structured PDF. Sometimes it's a more useful description of an image or a simple change in the way an organization responds to an accessibility request.
The important thing is to recognize the barriers and take practical steps to address them. And that is a goal worth continuing to work toward long after Accessibility Day is over.