Better and more semantic markup

HTML5 elements have more meaning

HTML5 elements

Native datepickers and handy keyboard input shortcuts

Number input type

No more fieldset abuse!

<details> element

Accessible HTML5 'disclosure widget' (accordion) in webkit

Chrome & Safari

D8 includes a polyfill for IE and FF 

Inline Form Errors

(eventually)

• A bit of a saga
• First discussed in 2009 issue queue that reached 265 comments
• Second thread ended in 600 comments
• Briefly included in D8 but buggy
• Moved to an experimental module
• But worth it:
  • Better than relying primarily on colour
  • Less scrolling as warning/error message more close to related input

Upstream a11y fixes

jQuery UI

CKEditor

jQuery UI

• Used a lot more in core than it was in D7
• A condition of this was that a11y issues fixed
• Autocomplete now using jQuery UI
  • Much better for screenreader users than D7's custom autocomplete
• New Modal and Dialog API uses jQuery UI
  • Better maintained and tested than a mix of Views own, CTools own, contrib… etc

ARIA live-regions wrapper

Drupal.announce()

Drupal.announce()

• Part of D8 JS API

• Used to announce dynamic changes in a non-visual way

• Consistent API and handles queuing

• Used for password strength indicator

• Devel_a11y module can log announcements to the browser console.

• Context module is a good example to look at

Tabbing manager

Simplifies keyboard use of complex interfaces

Drupal.TabbingManager()

• Restricts tabbing to a subset of the focusable elements

• Useful for when a user is completing a task which only requires certain elements to be focusable

• Used in Modal windows, contextual Edit mode

• Drupal.Announce used to announce when tabbing is constrained

• Devel_a11y can log these announcements to console

Views

• Many table improvements

  • Caption and summary element

  • Table headers included

  • Sort order exposed with WAI-ARIA

• Better colour contrast in Views UI

• Views UI using more accessible jQuery UI modal 

• Mini pager improvement with invisible text

• Large impact as core admin listing pages migrated to Views