Platform guide · WordPress & WooCommerce

WordPress accessibility and the BFSG

WordPress core takes accessibility seriously and has coding standards to prove it. Almost no production site is WordPress core: it is core plus a theme, a page builder, and between twenty and sixty plugins, and that is what your visitors get.

  • Core is not the problem
  • Page builders are
  • WooCommerce checkout needs its own pass

What the platform gives you, and what it does not

  • You get: a core with accessibility coding standards and block editor output that is largely sound
  • You get: a theme ecosystem that includes genuinely well-built accessible themes, if you choose one
  • You do not get: any guarantee from a page builder, which generates its own markup and ignores the block editor entirely
  • You do not get: plugin quality control — the repository has no accessibility requirement
  • You do not get: an accessible WooCommerce checkout by default; it needs testing like any other checkout

Platform guide · WordPress & WooCommerce

What we find on WordPress sites

  • Page builder output

    Nested divs with click handlers, headings chosen by font size, and accordions with no keyboard support. A builder-heavy site fails the same way on every page.

  • Popups and cookie plugins

    Newsletter popups and consent banners that trap focus or appear before the skip link — the first thing a keyboard user meets.

  • WooCommerce checkout fields

    Custom checkout fields added by plugins, with placeholders instead of labels and errors announced to nobody.

  • Media library alt text

    Empty for years, because nothing ever required it. A single field, thousands of images.

Where to look first

Each links to a plain-language page on that criterion: what it asks for, how it fails in practice, and how far an automated check can get.

All WCAG 2.2 AA criteria

A sensible order of work

  1. Decide about the page builder

    If it produces markup you cannot fix, that is an architectural finding, not a bug. Better to know early than to remediate page by page.

  2. Fix the popup first

    It is on every page, it is the first thing focus meets, and it is usually the most serious finding on the site.

  3. Test the WooCommerce checkout end to end

    With the keyboard, with your actual payment gateway plugin, with a real error.

  4. Work the media library by usage

    Not alphabetically. Start with the images that appear on the templates people actually land on.

WordPress questions

Will an accessibility plugin fix this?

Plugins that help you find and fix problems in your own content are useful. Overlay plugins that promise instant compliance are not: they do not change the underlying markup, they are named in a growing number of complaints, and they produce no evidence you could show an authority.

We use a well-known accessible theme. Is that enough?

It is a real head start and it removes a whole category of findings. It does not cover your plugins, your page-builder pages, your content or your checkout — so it changes where the findings are, not whether there are any.

Written to be useful, not to be legal advice. It reflects our reading of the BFSG and EN 301 549 as of 2026-09-13; for a binding assessment of your obligations, ask a lawyer.

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