My WP Accessibility Day journey: Looking ahead to 2026

With WordPress Accessibility Day 2026 coming up, I’ve been thinking about how I got here. I attended my first WP Accessibility Day in 2023, volunteered in 2024 and joined the organising team in 2025. This year, I’m back on the marketing team and returning as a volunteer Tech Admin.

It’s been a wonderful experience, but my journey into web accessibility started long before that first event.

From FrontPage to WordPress

I think my first experience with web design was in 2003. My dad arranged for my brother and me to learn about computers with a personal tutor, who gave us a brief introduction to Microsoft FrontPage. That was when I wrote my first “Hello World”. In 2007, a school teacher introduced us to Dreamweaver. I spent about two years using it before drifting away from web design to focus on Computer and Telecommunication Engineering.

Then, in 2019, my uncle asked me to rebuild his company’s Joomla website. By 2020, we’d decided to move to WordPress after I discovered how easy Elementor made building websites.

The trouble was, I’d forgotten much of the HTML, CSS and JavaScript I’d learnt. I relied heavily on dragging and dropping things into place, with a few flimsy workarounds when something didn’t behave the way I wanted.

Realising the web could work better for people like me

Throughout those years, I knew that my visual disability made some websites difficult to use. What I didn’t know was that there were ways to improve those experiences for people with disabilities.

One memory that has stayed with me is visiting a client who had Parkinson’s. I saw how banking apps with buttons that were difficult to tap could lead him to make the wrong transfers or pay for things he hadn’t intended to buy.

I’m grateful that I came across Anne-Mieke Bovelett in the Elementor Global Facebook Community, where she was helping people with accessibility. She showed me that even the sites we built with drag-and-drop tools could be improved. One example was using relative units such as rem for font sizes, rather than relying on pixels. It gave me somewhere to start.

My first WP Accessibility Day in 2023

In 2023, I discovered Amber Hinds’ Accessibility Weekly posts in The Admin Bar. Later that year, I attended WordPress Accessibility Day for the first time.

There was so much to learn: keyboard accessibility, accessible WordPress menus, the nav walker class, and standards and tools I’d barely encountered before. I started learning about ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and ATAG (Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines).

That first event encouraged me to attend more WordPress Accessibility Meetup sessions, a separate event run by Amber, and to volunteer as a moderator for WP Accessibility Day 2024.

If I’m being honest, the nice black WPAD T-shirt I spotted at the 2023 event helped persuade me too.

I’ve since collected the 2024, 2025 and 2026 shirts, but I’m still missing the black 2023 one that first caught my eye. 😭

Finding a welcoming community in 2024

What stayed with me in 2024 was the mix of people involved. Speakers, volunteers and attendees brought different cultures, backgrounds, disabilities, genders and levels of experience. There was something for everyone.

For a long time, my severe short-sightedness and struggles with social skills had left me feeling inferior to other people. But the WP Accessibility Day team was friendly and welcoming. That meant a lot to me.

It made me want to give more back, so I applied to become an organiser for 2025. I originally put my name down for the Post Event team with Ricky Blacker, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what the role involved!

Joining the organising team in 2025

Once I joined, I found several ways to help. I worked on post-event captioning, which falls under the Event Media team’s responsibilities for 2026, and volunteered as a Tech Admin alongside Taco Verdonschot.

I also helped manage the YouTube channel, attended organiser meetings and joined June Liu on a WP Tavern podcast to talk about the event.

What I’ve been working on for WPAD 2026

After the 2025 event, I was invited back as an organiser on the marketing team, with June Liu as my lead organiser.

I’ve continued helping with the YouTube channel. At the time of writing, it has grown from around 800 subscribers to about 944. I’d hoped we’d reach 1,000 by now. We’re not there yet, but it’s encouraging to see more people finding the channel. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to the WPAD YouTube channel.

I’ve also helped write a blog post and prepare backup posters for the Zoom sessions. Behind the scenes, I helped review the English captions for the 2020 recordings, helped with speaker selection and supported a few speakers as they recorded their sessions. I’ll be returning as a volunteer Tech Admin too.

Why I keep coming back

I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had through WP Accessibility Day, and for the people who’ve made me feel welcome along the way.

I hope the event continues to help people learn, build their confidence and support one another for many years to come. As AI becomes a bigger part of our work, I still value the chance to learn from other people and make those human connections.

If you haven’t registered yet, register for WordPress Accessibility Day 2026. It takes place online on 7–8 October, and it’s free to attend. I hope to see you there!