WCAG 2.2 for Theme Authors: The Nine Checks That Matter
Most theme accessibility failures come from the same short list. We audit every release against these nine checks before it leaves the studio.
Written by
Elizabeth Sramek
Elizabeth Sramek
Founder & lead designer
Elizabeth started ThemesCraft in 2012 as a one-person theme shop and has designed every theme the studio has released since. She writes about block themes, typography systems, and the unglamorous work of keeping a fourteen-year-old codebase healthy.
Reviewed by
Tomáš Holub
Tomáš Holub
Theme engineer
Tomáš joined the studio in 2017 and owns everything from theme.json architecture to the release pipeline. He maintains the studio's two plugins and runs the accessibility audits.
Last updated ·
Published ·
1 min read
You cannot make a site accessible from a theme alone — but you can make it almost impossible for the site owner to get it right. Most themes do.
Before you ship anything
- Tab the whole page. Fix ordering before you run a single automated tool.
- Check every palette pair the theme allows, not just the ones you used.
- Run one real screen-reader pass per template, not per site.
The list
- Visible focus on every interactive element, including inside patterns.
- Skip link that actually lands on the main landmark.
- Heading order that survives the editor rearranging blocks.
- 4.5:1 contrast on every palette pair the theme allows.
- Target size of at least 24×24px on all controls (2.5.8).
- Dragging alternatives for any slider or carousel (2.5.7).
- Consistent help placement across templates (3.2.6).
- No redundant entry in comment or checkout flows (3.3.7).
- Reduced-motion honoured on every transition you ship.
Test with the keyboard first
Before any automated tool, tab through the page. Ninety percent of what axe would report, you'll have found in ninety seconds — and you'll have found the ordering problems axe can't see.
An automated audit tells you what's broken. A keyboard tells you what's unusable.