3 Questions to Determine Whether Your Blog Theme Designer Gives a Rip about Accessibility

Congratulations! Your blog is a hit; even making money. Now you are itching to upgrade from a free blog theme to a beautifully designed custom theme.

But wait!

You have worked hard to ensure each blog post is as accessible as possible. Theme designers also impact the accessibility of your blog. However, not all theme designers are created equal. Not all have a clue about accessibility.

Here are three questions to ask when searching for a theme designer with knowledge and experience with web accessibility:

1. Which accessible guidelines or standards do you strive to meet in your work?

Possible responses include:

2. How do you test the accessibility of your designs?

Possible responses include:

  • Ask people with various disabilities to try the blog and provide feedback
  • Use a variety of accessibility checker applications, such as A-Checker, WAVE, Contrast Analyzer, HTML and CSS validators. (One application alone is not adequate!)
  • Checking web page code manually, against a specified set of guidelines or policy

3. Which themes have you recently created that meet accessibility guidelines?

Caution: Because they may have not built an accessible theme does not necessarily mean they don’t know how.

What other questions would you add to this list when searching for a theme designer knowledgeable about accessibility?

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2 Responses to 3 Questions to Determine Whether Your Blog Theme Designer Gives a Rip about Accessibility
  1. Paul Merrill
    June 2, 2011 | 4:23 pm

    It would be fabulous if you had links to the most accessible themes… affiliate links, so you could make some money when people buy the themes from here.

  2. Glynis Jolly
    Twitter:
    June 3, 2011 | 3:45 pm

    Thank you for the links to check the accessibility of a site. I THINK my blog is okay but know I can find out for sure.

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