Django accessibility in 2023 and past

Posted by Tom Carrick, Thibaud Colas, Sarah Abderemane on February 10, 2024

Pleased birthday, Django accessibility group! 🌈

The group has been up and operating for three years, and is now searching for new members. With loads occurring on this area, we thought we have been overdue for an replace on what we’re as much as.

Django accessibility in 2023

We’re very pleased with the work accomplished thus far. There have been lots of efforts to enhance the accessibility of core Django options comparable to types, and of the executive interface. Past Django core, there has additionally been progress on djangoproject.com, Django packages, and neighborhood consciousness through talks and occasions.

Django core

We made lots of enhancements this yr. Django types noticed huge fixes, which shipped in Django 5.0:

With types being such a core characteristic of Django, reused throughout numerous web sites, these adjustments will result in accessibility enhancements throughout huge components of the net.

The admin interface additionally noticed lots of fixes and enhancements:

A few of these enhancements will mirror for everybody, and a few will solely be useful for customers of particular assistive applied sciences, comparable to Distinction themes in Home windows:


Django admin interface in high contrast mode, black theme
→ Screenshot of the admin interface in a “Change redirect” kind, in Home windows excessive distinction mode with the “Black” theme.

Can you see the 5 points on this screenshot? Although Distinction Themes isn’t well-known, it’s a built-in characteristic of Home windows which is important for individuals with low imaginative and prescient. There may be lots of room for enchancment to higher help it in Django.

We’ve additionally made lots of progress on documenting accessibility concerns, although there’s nonetheless work to be accomplished there:

And eventually tooling enhancements comparable to operating accessibility checks within the CI pipeline remains to be an enormous subject for us, with in-progress efforts so as to add checks in Selenium assessments and standalone with Pa11y.

Django web site

In 2023, the web site noticed its first ever accessibility audit with a give attention to the homepage, in addition to an excellent variety of accessibility enhancements. These are all very welcome iterative steps within the context of consumer analysis on the usability of the web site, led by 20tab.

Thanks to our web site contributors Sarah Abderemane, Thibaud Colas, ontowhee, Sanyam Khurana, Hana Burtin, Paolo Melchiorre, and Tom Carrick ❤️.

Accessibility in our neighborhood

We’re elated to see accessibility being such a distinguished subject in our neighborhood. In 2023, there have been lots of accessibility talks at Django occasions. There have been accessibility contributors on the sprints for DjangoCon Europe, and DjangoCon US. The #accessibility channel on the Django Discord was additionally very energetic, and we received a brand new Accessibility discussion board class.

There have been lots of accessibility-focused talks at Django occasions:

Our very personal accessibility group member Sarah Abderemane was additionally featured on Django Chat: Accessibility – Sarah Abderemane 🎉, whereas Tom and Thibaud signed up for Djangonaut House’s first session as navigators.

Behind the scenes, the accessibility group additionally began sustaining a backlog of django accessibility enchancment, and in addition publish their accessibility group assembly notes on the discussion board.

Django accessibility in numbers

This yr, we have been capable of produce statistics on the accessibility of Django tasks, due to stories from the HTTP Archive. There may be clear room for enchancment, with Django web sites usually scoring decrease than websites constructed with different applied sciences:


Median accessibility score of websites by framework, cwvtech.report, December 2023
→ Median Lighthouse web site accessibility rating of internet sites by framework. Supply: HTTP Archive cwvtech.report, December 2023. Subsequent.js: 85/100, Rails: 83, “All”: 82.5, Django: 80.5, ASP.NET: 79, Laravel: 78.5.

There may be additionally clear information to ascertain precisely which accessibility points are widespread on Django web sites:


Difference in Lighthouse audit success rate for sites built with Django vs average site
→ Distinction in Lighthouse audit success fee for websites constructed with Django vs. common web site, HTTP Archive 2023-04-01 information, Django vs. “All”. We see 8 metrics the place Django does worse than common, and eight the place it does higher.

We see these numbers as an excellent problem for the Django neighborhood to discover methods wherein the framework could possibly be improved. There may be clear room for enchancment, and we’ve lots of concepts on the best way to go about it.

Accessibility plans for 2024

There are lots of methods wherein the accessibility of Django could possibly be improved in 2024. Listed below are a couple of concepts which were mentioned to date, the place our accessibility group is searching for assist:

  • Django ecosystem accessibility audits: Testing Trac or the Discussion board; or widespread Django packages.

  • An official Django demo web site: django-admin-demo with much more options.

  • Stylesheets linting: To catch and repair widespread points comparable to small font sizes or poor focus states.

  • Accessibility in docs: A attainable huge docs overhaul as a Google Season of Docs mission.

  • New, accessible admin elements: Addressing huge gaps within the admin interface.

  • Consumer testing: Working immediately with customers of assistive applied sciences.

  • An official Django accessibility assertion: On the web site, loud and clear.

New members

With this roadmap of enhancements in thoughts, our accessibility group is searching for six new members in 2024. If this feels like the kind of helpful, high-purpose work you wish to contribute to – attain out on the Django Discord in #accessibility, or on the discussion board.

Thanks

Thanks to everybody who took half in making Django extra accessible in 2023 and early 2024. You rock!

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