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Checking Under�The Hood

Auditing Your Website For A Smooth Ride

WordCamp Minneapolis | August 2020

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Who Am I?

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Co-Organizer of A11yTalks

Mentor for Open Source Contributions

CWG - Community Health team

@volkswagenchick

amyjune@kanopi.com

AmyJune Hineline (she/her)

Community Ambassador

QA Engineer

KANOPI STUDIOS

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We’re hiring!

https://kanopi.com/careers/

Kanopi

kan·​o·​pi | \ˈka-nə-pē

  • WordPress Engineer - Remote
  • Website Support Project Manager / Producer - Remote
  • Drupal Developer - Remote

Kanopi designs, builds �and supports websites for clients that want to make a positive impact.

Our holistic approach infuses strategy and creative thinking through all stages of your site’s lifecycle, providing the tools �you need to nourish, support, and grow your business.

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KANOPI STUDIOS

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Why Audit?

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Slow to Load

Site pages take more than 3 seconds to load.

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Not Responsive

The site doesn't display well on different devices.

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Content Woes

Updating content is a difficult and frustrating process.

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Confused Users

Site visitors can't find what they need.

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Troubles Using Site

Visitors can't use your site with assistive technology.

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Disastrous Experience

Bugs keep crashing the site.

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Nothing New

The design of the site hasn't changed.

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Unsecure

The site isn't loading over HTTPS.

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Hacked

The site has been compromised.

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Is it really that important for me to address these issues?

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YES!

A website that isn't working optimally can dramatically affect your bottom line.

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Time Passes

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Damage Credibility

Some issues can break trust in site visitors making them not want to return.

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Seem Out of Touch

As people grow with technology so should businesses.

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Cost Customers

Unhappy customers end up looking for other places to complete their business.

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Website Audit

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Pausing for a moment to hold space for

#BlackLivesMatter

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Strong Foundations

With smart user experience design combined with a strong technical foundation, we have optimal website health.

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User Experience

Audit

Understanding the purpose of the site and how to help users accomplish their goals.

  • Obtain data on actual site use
  • Assess whether site content, features, and the information model are appropriate for the site's audience
  • Provide analysis, feedback and recommendations for improving user experience
  • Roadmap items to account for continuous growth

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Technical Audit

Understanding the underlying foundation of how the site operates.

  • Core
  • Contributed modules
  • Custom code
  • Security
  • Hosting
  • 3rd Party integrations

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Accessibility

Audit

Understanding exactly who the site can effectively and correctly communicate with.

  • Run initial scan with tools to check HTML structure and basic page overviews
  • Use analytics to identify top trafficked pages
  • Additionally use keyboards to check tab order and items respond
  • Finish with voice over to make sure correct semantics and attributes read properly
  • Periodically check-in and review for accessibility improvements along the road

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Unpacking It All

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Preliminary Work

  • Version of WordPress Core
  • Top logged errors
  • Review modified files
  • Use any of the aforementioned
  • Check for patch documentation

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Examine The Theme

  • Check file structure: organize?
  • Is the site's functionality tied to the theme?
  • Is a page builder being used?
  • Flat CSS, SASS, etc?
  • JavaScript best practices?

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Check Site SEO

  • Using a sitemap?
  • Is the Yoast SEO Plugin or a similar plugin installed to help with XML Sitemap, Metatags, and SEO?
  • Are tools like Search Console being utilized?
  • What is Google Pagespeed ranking?

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Review Custom Code

  • What custom plugins are used?
  • Is there documentation for what the plugins main purpose is?
  • Can functionality be done differently with the help of other plugins?

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Assess Code Quality

  • Run custom plugins through PHP CodeSniffer
  • Check for code comments
  • Review code for possible improvements

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Test Your Accessibility

Ensure all your users, regardless of abilities, can interact in a meaningful way.

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Push Your Performance

You are only as strong as your weakest link.

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Performance

Be sure all images, videos, and visual information have alternative text.

  • Enable Page/Block Caching
  • Enable CSS/JS Aggregation
  • Optimize your images
  • Minify and bundle CSS and JS
  • Only load the files you need
  • Add pagination
  • Lazy load images
  • Use a CDN

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Read The Docs

  • Is there any documentation?
  • How does one set up site locally?
  • What tools/dependencies are needed?

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Accessibility

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Why design for accessibility?

Include a wider consumer base for your content, you don’t want to exclude people from using your products and services.

It’s the law!

Of people living in the United States live with a disability

26%

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Do all elements which should receive focus, receive keyboard focus?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

Do all of your images contain alt text? Are any of your images of text?

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

Do all of your images contain alt text? Are any of your images of text?

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

Does the screen reader read all content as presented on screen?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

Do all of your images contain alt text? Are any of your images of text?

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Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

Does the screen reader read all content as presented on screen?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

Do all of your images contain alt text? Are any of your images of text?

Can text be resized without obscuring any content?

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Are landmark regions properly defined between ARIA and HTML5?

Can Keyboard users navigate your site? Are there any keyboard traps?

Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

Does the screen reader read all content as presented on screen?

Does the page have sufficient means to skip features in an application?

Do all of your images contain alt text? Are any of your images of text?

Can text be resized without obscuring any content?

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VISUAL NEEDS

Make it easy to see, accommodate visual needs.

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VISUAL NEEDS

Make it easy to see, accommodate visual needs.

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VISUAL NEEDS

Make it easy to see, accommodate visual needs.

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MOTOR NEEDS

Make it easy to interact, accommodate motor needs.

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AUDITORY NEEDS

Make it easy to interact, accommodate motor needs.

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VISUAL NEEDS

Make it easy to see, accommodate visual needs.

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MOTOR NEEDS

Make it easy to interact, accommodate motor needs.

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AUDITORY NEEDS

Make it easy to interact, accommodate motor needs.

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COGNITIVE NEEDS

Make it easy to understand, accommodate cognitive needs.

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Accessibility

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Global Stage

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Plain language

Strive to use language that more people will understand.

  • Aim for the 9th grade reading level
  • 20 words per sentence
  • 5 sentences per paragraph
  • Break up content
    • Bullet points
    • Numbered lists

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Inclusive language

Strive to use constructive language that reflects social and cultural diversity in a positive and accurate way.

  • Do not make assumptions
  • Ableist terms
    • Use people centered language
    • Avoid negative or demeaning language
  • Gendered language
    • Use gender neutral terms

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Captions, subtitles, and alt text

Be sure all images, videos, and visual information have alternative text.

  • Images
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Audio Files
  • PDFs

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Headings

Headings are for organizing content, not for style

  • Hierarchical heading structure
  • The <h1> to <h6> tags are used to define HTML headings.
    • <h1> defines the most important heading
    • <h6> defines the least important heading
  • Never for styling

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Wrapping It Up

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  • Audits are important
  • Audit Consists
    • Technical
    • UX
    • Accessibility
  • Technical audit
    • Start with Core
    • Theme
    • SEO
    • Code
  • Technical audit (Cont.)
    • Docs
    • Performance
  • User Experience
    • Data driven decisions
  • A11y - Code
    • Web Content A11y Guidelines (WCAG)
  • A11y - Content
    • Structured
    • Understandable

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Wrapping Up

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Performance

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Accessibility

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More Questions?

Join me at Pantheon’s Virtual Booth after my session to chat more and to join their raffle!

You can find the booth link on the Hallway track: https://minneapolis.wordcamp.org/2020/session/hallway-track/

No this is not going to show up in Presentation Mode

PANTHEON.IO

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Thank you!

Reach out anytime.

amyjune@kanopi.com

@volkswagenchick

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