Each year, Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) reminds us of how important it is to build a more inclusive web. At Equalize Digital, we marked GAAD 2025 by hosting our first virtual accessibility contributor day, and I’m thrilled by the impact we collectively made.
From improvements in WordPress core and plugins to captioned content and education, this year’s efforts reaffirmed how powerful community action can be.
Virtual Contributor Day: Recap & Highlights
Our virtual contributor day brought together WordPress users, developers, testers, and accessibility advocates from around the world. Some contributors worked to improve open source by focusing on accessibility improvements to WordPress software, while others made accessibility improvements in their own products and web content.
We’re proud to say that:
86 people pledged 382 hours to improve accessibility in WordPress on May 15th.
It was an excellent turnout for the first event of its kind. People worked on everything from testing plugins and writing code to captioning videos, organizing discussions, and updating documentation.
Here are just a few of the things people did during GAAD:
Aaron Jobin ran an accessibility-focused bug scrub for WordPress core.
Aaron Jorbin, a WordPress core committer, ran an accessibility-focused bug scrub in the Core channel on Make WordPress Slack. Bug scrubs are essential for moving accessibility tickets forward in the WordPress development process. Running the bug scrub in the core channel (instead of in the accessibility channel) was a great way to raise the visibility of accessibility bugs for larger community discussion and possibly bring in people to solve issues who might not normally think to work on accessibility bugs.
Adam Wright fixed his website using Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker and WAVE.
Adam Wright pledged an hour of his time toward improving the accessibility of his website. Adam wrote on Facebook that, using tools like the WAVE extension and the Accessibility Checker plugin, he made meaningful updates to his website, including adding and correcting alt text and title attributes, removing links that opened in new tabs unnecessarily, fixing a redundant link, and testing for zoom-related issues at 200%.
He emphasized that even small changes can make a big difference, and he encouraged others to take similar steps toward a more accessible web.
Arwyn Todd educated her clients about accessibility.
Arwyn Todd sent a newsletter about digital accessibility to her email list. The newsletter included three ways people could make their websites more accessible quickly and easily, and explained what an Accessibility Statement was and why they would want one.
Bjarne Oldrup and Wolfgang made the Include Mastodon Feed plugin more accessible.
Bjarne connected with Wolfgang, the developer of the Include Mastodon Feed plugin, which embeds posts from Mastodon. The two teamed up to make meaningful accessibility improvements.
“I did the testing of the original plugin and betas with NVDA and provided Wolfgang with recommendations. Wolfgang did all the heavy lifting, improving the PHP and JavaScript code,” Bjarne said.
In just one day, they:
- Added meaningful alt text (instead of filenames)
- Improved keyboard navigation
- Removed redundant duplicate links
The plugin—used by over 800 sites—is now significantly more accessible. Reflecting on the day, Bjarne said:
The GAAD event inspired us both to pitch in, the plugin with 800 users got massively improved, and I met a new friend!
David Denedo improved the accessibility of his YouTube videos.
David Denedo of Daveden WebDev dedicated his GAAD 2025 to improving the accessibility of video content and engaging in community conversations. He manually updated captions for five of his recent YouTube videos and hosted a live accessibility discussion on YouTube to raise awareness and share knowledge. He also began updating the captions for that live stream.
In addition to his own initiatives, David participated in several accessibility-related livestreams and online meetings, further deepening his involvement in the accessibility community.
Gen Herres supported others in their accessibility journey.
Gen Herres, creator of the Easy A11y Guide and organizer of the Baltimore WordPress Meetup, dedicated her time during GAAD to supporting others in their accessibility journeys. She helped an agency strategize how to incorporate accessibility into their service offerings, assisted a plugin developer in improving the accessibility of their plugin, and hosted a Q&A session to answer accessibility questions from agencies. Her contributions empowered others to make the web more inclusive.
Jean Werk helped a nonprofit improve accessibility on its donation page.
Jean Werk helped a nonprofit, Crestani Scholarships, that funds scholarships for Medical personnel to finance their education and research study. He tackled some tricky issues around focus outlines on their online donation form, which is built using GiveWP.
Joseph LaFauci attended webinars and sparked a discussion on LinkedIn.
Joseph LaFauci, Assistive Technology Lead and Customer Engineer at Atos North America, marked GAAD 2025 by attending several accessibility webinars to expand his expertise and reflect on the future of inclusive technology.
In a LinkedIn post, Joseph emphasized the need to embed accessibility earlier in the software development lifecycle. He raised important questions about whether modern Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools generate accessible code by default and challenged developers of these tools to lead the way in creating more inclusive applications. His insights highlight how improving developer tools could help eliminate the need for costly accessibility retrofits and lead to a web that works better for everyone.
June Liu dedicated time to learning, creating content, and supporting WP Accessibility Day.
June Liu, Creative Strategist at backpocket ACE, used GAAD 2025 as an opportunity to deepen her accessibility knowledge and put it into practice. She enrolled in our VoiceOver for Screen Reader Testing course to build her testing skills.
She also published a blog post titled Make It Make Sense: Accessibility Matters in Your Marketing Content, which included a free downloadable resource. In addition to creating that free resource, June evaluated various social media scheduling tools for their support of alt text. She reviewed a webpage she was working on to improve its heading structure. She capped off the day by tuning into the WP Accessibility Day Panel Discussion.
Reflecting on her experience, June shared that while there’s more work to be done, there are also countless opportunities to improve digital platforms—and she’s eager to keep contributing.
Kira Rodriguez got inspired to make accessibility a regular practice.
Kira Rodriguez of Evergreen Action pledged one hour. In that time, she improved the color contrast within images and corrected the heading structure on some of their most popular pages. She created an accessibility remediation plan and shared it with her team to continue fostering conversations about the importance of accessibility. She said,
This event inspired me to make accessibility a regular practice.
Kira’s experience highlights that you can complete a lot in one hour. It’s not difficult to build remediation into your daily or weekly schedule, allowing you to improve your website over time.
Mark Armstrong spent the day learning and helping others.
Mark Armstrong, Technical Project Manager at Skvare, spent nearly the entire day focused on accessibility. He attended a 2-hour webinar, provided training resources to his team, and conducted accessibility reviews on three new project features.
Robert DeVore enhanced his img-a11y plugin.
Robert DeVore celebrated GAAD by doing what he does best: writing code. Robert wrote on his blog that he decided to focus on his WordPress plugin, IMG A11Y, which helps users ensure their images have proper alt text.
In version 1.1.0, released on GAAD, Robert removed confusing accessibility options for non-image media. He added support for Elementor, allowing the plugin to now detect missing alt attributes in Elementor-built content and block publication until issues are fixed.
These updates reflect a commitment to practical accessibility, rooted in the belief that small changes, like meaningful alt text, can have a big impact. Robert’s message in his blog post is clear: accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought; it’s a responsibility, and everyone has a role to play in making the web usable for all.
rtCamp led the day with 13 contributors participating.
rtCamp is near the bottom of the list alphabetically, but they lead the pack regarding the number of contributors who took our pledge.
Thirteen team members from rtCamp collectively pledged 104 hours to enhance accessibility within the WordPress ecosystem. Their contributions spanned several key areas across WordPress core, Gutenberg, and WooCommerce. They shared on Twitter that they contributed to 21 accessibility-related issues in WooCommerce and Gutenberg, opened 8 pull requests with patches, 2 of which were merged into the software for a future release.
rtCamp’s substantial participation underscores their commitment to open source and building a web that works for everyone. They said:
Accessibility isn’t about massive rewrites. Even one line of code can improve someone’s experience meaningfully.
And more…
These weren’t the only people who worked on accessibility. Want to see other things people worked on? Check out more things people were working on in the participants list.
What the Equalize Digital Team Did
We work on accessibility daily, so we used GAAD as an opportunity to contribute to the broader community. Rather than focusing on our own projects or client work, we contributed to the WordPress project, the WP Accessibility Day nonprofit, and created free resources for the community.
Translating Videos for WP Accessibility Day
Our content specialist, Paola, is a native Spanish speaker. She helped expand the reach of accessibility education by translating WordPress Accessibility Day videos into Spanish. Her work will help ensure that more people around the world, particularly in Latin America and other Spanish-speaking regions, can access vital information about inclusive web development. Making accessibility knowledge available in multiple languages is essential to global progress, and we’re proud of Paola’s contribution.
If you want to help translate WP Accessibility Day videos into your language, you can do that here: Translate WP Accessibility Day videos.
Creating Resources for Agencies
Our COO, Chris, began developing a new set of free resources specifically for agencies and freelancers who want to integrate accessibility into their service offerings. These materials will offer guidance, templates, and best practices to help digital professionals communicate the value of accessibility to clients and improve the inclusiveness of their work from the start. They are not available yet, but join our email list to get notified when they’re finished.
New Free Plugin for Pausing Animated GIFs
Developers love to contribute with code! Steve, our CTO, and William, our senior plugin developer, collaborated on a new open-source plugin that gives users a simple way to pause animated GIFs on websites—a small but impactful enhancement for people with vestibular disorders or motion sensitivity.
The project was a direct response to ongoing feedback from users who need better motion control, and requests from content creators who like having animated GIFs on their website but still want to be WCAG conformant. While working on the plugin, they utilized another open-source library and ended up contributing a patch back to that library when they discovered a bug.
Download the Accessibility Pause Animated GIFs plugin on GitHub.
Updating the WordPress Accessibility-Ready Requirements for Themes
Over the last year, I have been talking with Joe Dolson about updating the “accessibility-ready” theme requirements for the WordPress Theme Directory. Rian Reitveld started this work during contributor day at WordCamp Europe 2024, and then we further worked on the guidelines during WordCamp Canada last year, but the update was never finished.
Joe and I teamed up on Thursday of GAAD (and the Friday after) to finish assessing and completely rewrite the outdated guidelines. We’re proposing changes that better reflect current accessibility standards, improving the bar for accessibility in themes available to WordPress users, and providing better guidance on how to test so it will be easier for anyone to test themes for Accessibility Ready conformance. Stay tuned. More information on the overhaul of the guidelines will be provided soon.
More Contribution Opportunities
As someone who has worked in both accessibility and WordPress for a long time, I can say without hesitation that contributing is worth it.
Why contribute?
- You meet great people. Throughout my time contributing to WordPress, I have made a ton of friends, developed partnerships and collaborations, and have had the opportunity to learn from generous and kind strangers. Many folks in WordPress share knowledge openly, with the spirit of trying to raise one another up. That’s the heart of open source, and you get so much more out of the project when you join in as a contributor.
- You learn. The best way to learn accessibility is by doing! You can do accessibility on your own website, of course, but working on accessibility in WordPress core or for a plugin provides so many more learning opportunities. When you contribute to accessibility in open source, you’ll get outside feedback and have the chance to encounter issues in more complex and layered situations, both of which lead to more learning opportunities. Whether you’re writing your first accessibility test or reviewing an interface for keyboard traps, every contribution builds your skills.
- You make the internet better. I say this a lot, but a fix in WordPress core, a plugin, or a theme can impact thousands (or millions!) of websites. If you want to multiply your testing or remediation efforts many times over, contributing beyond your own site is the way to do it.
I shared more thoughts on why contributing matters and the impact of the day in this Accessibility Craft Podcast Episode, Measuring Impact of Contributions to WordPress (GAAD Recap).
I would encourage everyone, especially you, who made it this far in the post, to think about how you can make accessibility part of your daily or weekly practice, and ways that you can get involved with accessibility work in WordPress or another open-source project.
Looking Ahead: WordCamp Europe Contributor Day
We’re already looking forward to continuing the momentum at WordCamp Europe! If you’re attending Contributor Day in Basel, come join me at the Accessibility Table. Whether you’re a designer, developer, content creator, or tester, there are opportunities to make a difference.
If you’ve never contributed before, don’t worry—there will be experienced contributors available to help you get started.
Not attending WordCamp Europe?
You don’t have to attend WordCamp in person to get involved. Check out all the resources on the GAAD 2025 Pledge page for ideas about how to get involved no matter where you are in the world.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for GAAD 2025 and helped make the web more accessible. Let’s keep the momentum going! ❤️
