Component Pattern Libraries for Accessible WordPress Experience: Reed Piernock

Georgetown University has over 400 WordPress sites in a shared codebase, and the web services team needs to ensure a usable and accessible experience that also follows university standards and branding guidelines. The solution is a pattern library system that integrates components into both custom themes and custom blocks. This allows developers to update front-end code in just one place, keeping everything consistent across multiple repositories.

This presentation will demonstrate how the pattern library works, how the themes and blocks are built using shared components, and how accessibility testing is an integral part of the process from concept to deployment. It will also illustrate how building an accessible system takes the burden away from content editors by allowing them to only focus on any accessibility warning or errors in the content they control.