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Checking Under�The Hood

Auditing Your Website For A Smooth Ride

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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

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@volkswagenchick

amyjune@kanopi.com

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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

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Site pages take more than 3 seconds to load.

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Not Responsive

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The site doesn't display well on different devices.

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Content Woes

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Updating content is a difficult and frustrating process.

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Confused Users

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Site visitors can't find what they need.

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Troubles Using Site

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Visitors can't use your site with assistive technology.

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Disastrous Experience

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Bugs keep crashing the site.

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Nothing New

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The design of the site hasn't changed.

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Unsecure

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The site isn't loading over HTTPS.

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Hacked

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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!

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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

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

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Seem Out of Touch

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As people grow with technology so should businesses.

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Cost Customers

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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

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#BlackLivesMatter

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Strong Foundations

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

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User Experience

Audit

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

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  • 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

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Understanding the underlying foundation of how the site operates.

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

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Accessibility

Audit

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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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

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Test Your Accessibility

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

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Push Your Performance

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You are only as strong as your weakest link.

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Performance

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

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  • 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

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  • 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?

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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!

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Of people living in the United States live with a disability

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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?

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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?

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

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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?

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Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

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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?

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Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

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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?

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Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

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

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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?

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Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

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

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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 text be resized without obscuring any content?

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Are landmark regions properly defined between ARIA and HTML5?

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

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Are tables used for more than tabular data?

Do all elements which should receive focus receive keyboard focus?

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

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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 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

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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

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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

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

  • Images
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Audio Files
  • PDFs

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Headings

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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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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!

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

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No this is not going to show up in Presentation Mode

PANTHEON.IO

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Thank you!

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Reach out anytime.

amyjune@kanopi.com

@volkswagenchick

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