Improving the Welcome Experience: Insights on Inclusion in WordPress
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In a thought-provoking talk titled "Over the Rainbow: Talking about Inclusivity for the LGBTQIA+ Community in WordPress", Kirsty Burgoyne highlighted the need for building spaces where everyone can bring their full selves to the WordPress community.
Burgoyne, who uses they/them pronouns, noted that they have witnessed both the warm acceptance and the need to shrink parts of themselves to fit in within the WordPress community. They acknowledged that inclusivity is not just a policy or a rainbow logo, but a practice, a pulse, and a way of paying attention.
To foster genuine accessibility and belonging, Burgoyne emphasized the importance of focusing on daily practices and micro-decisions. Here are some key suggestions:
- Adopt accessibility-ready themes and plugins: Choosing themes that follow accessibility standards and using plugins like WP Accessibility ensures the website is usable for people with disabilities on a technical level.
- Implement clear, semantic content structure: Using consistent heading tags and avoiding visual-only styling for important structure helps screen readers navigate content logically, supporting all users, especially those relying on assistive technology.
- Make forms and interactive elements fully accessible: Labeling all form fields clearly, enabling keyboard navigation, and ensuring error messages are understandable for all users prevents excluding people with disabilities from engaging fully with the community.
- Train community members to use inclusive language and communication: Beyond technical accessibility, inclusivity involves everyday interactions where micro-decisions on language, responses to questions, and conflict resolution determine whether members feel welcome.
- Embed accessibility checks and feedback loops: Regularly auditing content and community spaces for accessibility issues using automated tools and community feedback makes adjustments part of daily maintenance.
- Foster small but consistent inclusive behaviors: Encouraging habits like explaining acronyms, avoiding jargon, and respecting pronouns in all communications helps cultivate inclusivity through routine interaction.
Burgoyne also emphasized the need for real inclusivity, which is messy, ongoing, and a series of tiny course corrections, including owning up to mistakes and trying again publicly and imperfectly. They encouraged talking not just in keynotes or on panels, but in DMs, in documentation, and in the details that are thought to be unnoticed.
In conclusion, Burgoyne believes that building a better WordPress begins with building a better welcome. They invited everyone to keep making room for softness, slowness, and stories that don't fit neatly in slides or sprints. They also suggested thinking about inclusivity as a kind of emotional accessibility, where one's full self is welcomed, anticipated, and woven into everything done in WordPress.
Burgoyne ended their talk with a question, "Is it as inclusive as it could be?" in reference to the WordPress community. They emphasized the need to build tools that feel like an open hand, not a clenched fist. They identified themselves as someone who has navigated the edges of the conversation about inclusivity in the WordPress community, being a little queer, a little neurodivergent, and sometimes feeling like a footnote in bigger conversations.
[1] Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) - https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
[2] WordPress Accessibility - https://wordpress.org/about/accessibility/
[3] A11y Project - https://a11yproject.com/
- In the realm of personal growth and self-development, embracing emotional accessibility, as Burgoyne suggests, can lead to a more inclusive attitude, helping individuals become better contributors in diverse communities like fashion and beauty, business, education, and lifestyle.
- At the intersection of career development and diversity-and-inclusion, fostering inclusive language and communication in one's professional life not only encourages a more welcoming environment for LGBTQIA+ individuals but also benefits overall team dynamics, productivity, and innovative thinking for any business.
- For those seeking financial independence, investing in companies that prioritize diversity-and-inclusion, such as in the WordPress community, could lead to long-term success, as these organizations are more likely to be innovative, adaptable, and responsive to an increasingly diverse market.
- Adopting practices of accessibility and inclusivity in one's personal and professional life demonstrates a commitment to positive change, a key component of one's overall lifestyle and personal brand, showcasing values aligned with a welcoming, inclusive, and forward-thinking society.
