Craft CMS Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) Report

We audited the Craft 5.0.0 authoring experience against WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria and published a conformance report. At a high level, the results are:

• 18 Supports
• 30 Partially Supports
• 4 Does Not Support
• 4 Not Applicable

Craft CMS is a web-based CMS.

Craft CMS is a web-based CMS.

When the native Alternative Text field is enabled for image assets, the image’s alternative text is used in editing views throughout the control panel.

The only time-based media rendered in the control panel are video assets and animated images. Animated images, like GIFs, function identically to other images (see A.2.1.1).

Video previews are not rendered in editing views but only in standalone Preview modals accessible from editing views. When a video asset’s Alternative Text field is filled, the contents are available as “Transcript” text below the video in the Preview modal.

Craft CMS does not allow you to attach caption tracks to uploaded videos. Videos previewed in the control panel will only have captions if they have been hard-coded into the video files.

Craft CMS includes the following status indicators for its fields:

• A vertical blue bar is shown adjacent to fields that have been modified
• Character counts for Plain Text fields
• Error indicator (list + aria-describedby)
• Revision (readonly/disabled)

The following status indicators pass:

• For simple fields, like Plain Text fields, the modified status indicator is programmatically exposed with aria-describedby (“This field has been modified”)

The following status indicators fail:

• Text fields with character limits expose this information to assistive technology with a live region, but the limit isn’t programmatically linked with the input (PT-1889)
• More complex fields, like fieldsets or fields where there are no explicit inputs (for example, Entries), do not expose the modified status indicator programmatically (PT-1890)

In a default install, Craft CMS doesn’t include fields that allow you to edit text formatting properties.

Most of Craft CMS is keyboard accessible, but there are some exceptions. The Craft CMS v.5.0.0 Accessibility Conformance Report, section 2.1.1 Keyboard, provides a detailed account of issues.

As of version 5.3.0, both issues related to details pages have been resolved:

• Table field rows can be reordered by keyboard
• Matrix field checkboxes are keyboard-accessible, so keyboard users can now perform bulk options on Matrix items

There is a single bug that introduces a focus trap in the control panel:

• When opening a slideout on large viewports where the sidebar is toggled open initially, users can’t tab out of the details sidebar. A workaround is to resize the viewport window so the sidebar is closed on open or to edit entries on their dedicated edit pages.

The Craft CMS interface uses several mechanisms to make keyboard access more efficient:

• A bypass link is present on all pages to skip the primary navigation, and a handful of repeated blocks include skip links as well
• Landmarks — such as main and navigation — are used to allow authors to navigate more quickly between page areas
• On edit screens, keyboard shortcuts have been added for the following actions:
  • “Ctrl/⌘ + S” for “Save” functionality
  • “Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + S” for “Save and add another” functionality

Not in scope.

Not in scope.

Not in scope.

Craft CMS’s default behavior is to autosave drafts (see the autosaveDrafts config setting). When a user updates content, unsaved changes are automatically stored.

If the session time limit is reached, users can extend their session (“Keep me signed in”) to continue working on the content. However, if a user is signed out before they can save, autosave allows them to resume edits where they left off.

Adjustable timing is successfully implemented for user session durations. When a user’s session is close to expiring, a modal allows them to extend it.

Users can adjust the display time of notification toasts in their preferences or make them persistent. However, users may encounter short toast display times before updating this setting unless developers have set a longer or indefinite duration time.

Craft CMS does not include any moving user interface controls.

Not in scope.

Videos are not auto-played in the control panel except in response to user interaction.

However, previews of GIFs and other image formats that support animation do auto-play and could pose a risk to authors with photosensitive seizure disorder.

Custom fields and their resulting markup are highly customizable by developers, so there is not a clear 1:1 relationship between the editing view and document structure that would allow for intuitive keyboard navigation.

Not in scope.

The authoring tool does not have a feature for searching text on authoring screens. While an author can activate the in-browser search to search editable text, the search is not limited to the focused field. While the in-browser search is usually sufficient for finding text in editable fields, there are some outstanding issues. The in-browser search also finds invisible and off-screen content, so the visible search focus may be lost. In addition, content may be separated into various tabs in the field layout; browser search cannot find editable content in inactive tabs.

Craft CMS’s display settings can be adjusted without modifying the content that’s being edited.

Preference settings are associated with author accounts, and settings are applied as soon as authors log in.

Display settings

• Reduced motion:
  • Pass: Animated UI components respect users’ “Reduce motion” settings. For example, animations are toggled for accordions and slideouts based on the author’s platform or system settings.
  • Fail: Time-based images like GIFs do not respect a user’s “Reduce motion” settings
• Font sizing:
  • Fail: Usages of `px` and `rem` are mixed, so some parts of the UI respect the user’s preferred font sizes, while others are hard-coded. As a workaround, users who require larger font sizes can use browser zoom to increase legibility.
• Language and locale:
  • Pass: Unless overridden with control panel preferences — or a default control panel language has been set in the config — the UI defaults to the language set in the user’s browser.
• High contrast mode:
  • Not checked: The control panel respects the high contrast mode when it’s set on the user’s device, although thorough testing has not been performed to verify the usability of the control panel with this platform setting.

Control settings: The CMS respects the user’s method of control. There are no explicit control modes, and users can switch between various control methods (voice, keyboard, mouse, etc.) without updating their preferences.

Craft CMS supports content previewing via the Live Preview functionality and provides links to view front-end templates.

The Live Preview functionality loads content into an iframe adjacent to the authoring view. Links to view content are opened in a new tab in the current user agent. Both rely on the user agent to give authors a realistic impression of how end users will experience the content.

Not in scope.

Built-in features of the CMS help authors easily reverse changes to some content and settings.

Content

Entries support versioning, which allows content authors to view and restore entries from previous versions (i.e., “Revisions”). 

In addition, when authors edit an entry, the CMS creates a provisional draft and autosaves changes. If the author wants to revert these changes to the most recently saved version, a UI control allows the author to discard unsaved changes easily.

While they do not support versioning, categories also support provisional drafts, so content authors can easily discard unsaved changes.

Assets, tags, and globals do not support either versioning or provisional drafts, so changes must be reversed manually.

Settings

Authors can update and reverse changes to user interface settings from the Account page.

All user preference changes can be undone by revisiting the Preferences page and adjusting the settings.

Not in scope.

Not all functionality used to meet Part A has been documented.

Documented:

• Keyboard shortcuts (Command-S, etc.) (A.3.1.3)
• Alternative Text (A.2.1.1)
• Editing Entries (A.3.2.1, A.4.1.1) - includes information about drafts and auto-save, reverting changes using revisions, etc.

Undocumented:

• Keyboard-accessible methods for reordering content (A.3.1.1)
• Skip link (A.3.1.3)
• Page landmarks for navigation by SR users (A.3.1.3)
• How platform settings affect the control panel (A.3.6.3)
• Text search (A.3.5.1)
• Live Preview (A.3.7.1)
• Accessibility preferences
  • Extending session limits (A.3.2.2)
  • Adjusting notification duration (A.3.2.2)
  • Preferences are saved between sessions (A.3.6.2)

Most control panel functionality has been documented. Features and changes in functionality may cause gaps in coverage. Craft CMS documentation does not currently conform to WCAG 2.2 Level AA.

Craft CMS only edits content during an active authoring session.

HTML output is highly customizable by developers via Twig templating; web content and markup are never fully and automatically generated without room for intervention or remediation. However, some Twig code outputs complete HTML markup when used in templates.

Automatically-generated markup is accessible in the following scenarios:

• Pass: Outputting an image with `asset.getImg()` generates accessible markup on the front end when the image has a meaningful Alternative Text value.
• Pass: Link markup for all link types when outputting a complete anchor tag (i.e., using {{ entry.myLinkFieldHandle.link}}), so long as the element is titled appropriately.

Markup is not accessible in the following scenario:

• Fail: An asset’s Alternative Text cannot be customized for different contexts. Likewise, assets cannot be marked as decorative based on context; however, developers can adjust asset markup for particular templates to account for instances where they are decorative.

Craft CMS does not perform automated checking. However, developers can prompt authors for more information by requiring fields that result in accessible content.

For example, the native Alternative Text field is not required by default, but developers can make it required when building the asset field layout.

To ensure users enter alternative text when uploading assets via a custom field, the “Validate related assets” setting should be enabled. This prevents the source element from being saved when validation errors exist on the related assets.

The authoring tool does not incorporate any restructuring or recoding transformations.

Rich text fields are only available in Craft CMS when installing additional plugins. In a basic install, because field inputs don’t support rich text, copy-paste from other sources will strip the formatting.

Craft CMS doesn’t perform any optimizations or transformations that would affect accessibility.

Craft CMS doesn’t perform any recoding transformations involving non-text content.

Accessible content production in the CMS relies on how developers have configured it in terms of content modeling, front-end templating, etc.

However, some issues may affect accessible content production:

• Authors cannot mark images as decorative or modify their alternative text for different contexts

There are no built-in authoring actions that result in a predictable authoring outcome, as these are dependent on the content model and templates defined by the developer.

Craft CMS doesn’t provide authors with a method of editing web content properties.

Craft CMS supports editing text alternatives everywhere images and videos can be added. However, authors cannot mark images as decorative or change the alternative text in different contexts.

Craft CMS doesn’t try to automate the repair of text alternatives. If an image doesn’t have a text alternative, the alt attribute is not applied so that automated checks can catch the issue.

The authoring tool doesn’t provide any templates. Craft CMS makes no assumptions about the site’s front-end markup, and developers have complete control over all templates and markup.

The authoring tool doesn’t provide any templates.

Authors cannot create new templates.

Craft CMS does not provide pre-authored content.

Craft CMS does not provide pre-authored content.

Craft CMS does not include any integrated accessibility checking.

However, because custom fields and the resulting templates are highly customizable, developers can provide basic checking assistance by

1. Marking fields as required when they contribute to the accessibility of authored content
2. Writing instructions that guide authors in creating accessible content

Craft CMS does not provide checks for web content accessibility problems.

Craft CMS does not provide checks for web content accessibility problems.

Craft CMS does not provide checks for web content accessibility problems.

Craft CMS does not provide checks for web content accessibility problems.

Craft CMS does not provide checks for web content accessibility problems.

Craft CMS does not include any accessibility checkers.

The only accessible content support feature we’ve identified is the native Alternative Text field and its validation.

Developers can enable accessible content support for images by including the native Alternative Text field in image asset field layouts and:

• Making Alternative Text a required field
• Enabling the “Validate related assets” lightswitch to ensure that users add Alternative Text when adding images via a relational field

However, these are not active by default and rely on developer setup.

The feature identified in B.4.1.1 can only be activated by a developer. Authors cannot activate or deactivate this feature themselves.

See B.4.1.2: Option to Reactivate Features.

Craft CMS does not include features for checking invalid markup, syntax errors, spelling errors, or grammar errors.

Documentation does not consistently demonstrate accessible authoring practices.

There is no documentation about the native Alternative Text field that is geared toward content authors.