Creating accessible themes | Theming Drupal 7 | Drupal Wiki guide on Drupal.org
Skip to search
Can we use first and third party cookies and web beacons to
understand our audience, and to tailor promotions you see
Documentation
Advertising sustains the DA. Ads are hidden for members.
Join today
Theming Drupal 7
Overview of theme files
Writing theme .info files
Default .info values
Assigning content to regions
Checking if a region is occupied
Theme settings
Global settings
Integration with the Color module
Creating a sub-theme
Clearing the theme cache
Sub Theme - Inheritance Summary
Example: creating a Garland sub-theme that utilizes the Color module
Working with CSS
Working with JavaScript and jQuery
Using Newer Versions of jQuery
Core templates
Template (theme hook) suggestions
Theming blocks
Advanced theming
Overriding themable output
Creating accessible themes
Theming HowTos
Tools and best practices
Upgrading 6.x themes to 7.x
Creating accessible themes
Drupal 7 will no longer be supported after January 5, 2025.
Learn more and find resources for Drupal 7 sites
This guide provides you a  description of accessibility with best practices for theme developers.
Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When the sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access for information and functionality.
The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Introduction to Web Accessibility
says Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and  they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility give benefits to others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.
Accessibility principles
This is a Drupal-centric version of Principles of Accessible Design, part of the Introduction to Web Accessibility by WebAIM.org.
Building accessible forms
The following tips will improve the accessibility of your forms:
Contributed modules to help with accessibility
A list of modules that can help improve the accessibility of your site.
Creating accessible site and page navigation
This page provides an overview of best practices for making page and site navigation more accessible.
Creating accessible structure and markup
This page provides information on accessibility issues with structure, markup, data tables and page navigation
Getting started with accessibility
Because she is amazing, Ann McMeekin has prepared for us a guide to designing accessibility into themes - it's useful far beyond this
Hide content properly
This page covers major techniques for hiding content for all users and users with screen readers.
Improving readability with fonts and typography
Type on the web must have a high level of readability. Readability is a measure of how easily words, phrases and blocks of copy can be read.
Maintaining accessibility in rich Internet applications and Javascript/Ajax features
The following guidelines will help with building rich Internet applications
Managing images and media for accessibility
For most of us it would be hard to understand the web without images, audio, video and new interactive media. However, much of that
Providing Useful Alternative Text for Images
For screen reader users and SEO, it is important to put in alternative text for images that convey the meaning that the visual represents.
Providing a way to skip navigation
Skip navigation links are one of the easiest ways to quickly improve the accessibility of your site. Skip links allow site visitors to jump
Specifying colors and contrast for accessibility
According to Vischeck, "Roughly 1 in 20 people have some sort of color vision deficiency." Having sufficient contrast between the text color
Tools for validating accessibility
This page discusses two types of validation:
Using headings to improve accessibility
Headings allow screen-reader and assistive technology users to skim the structure of a page and navigate to or skip over sections.
Drupal’s online documentation is © 2000-2026 by the individual contributors and can be used in accordance with the
Creative Commons License, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
. PHP code is distributed under the
GNU General Public License
Infrastructure management for Drupal.org provided by
Need a Drupal 7 extended support partner? Consider Tag1.
News items
News
Planet Drupal
Social media
Sign up for Drupal news
Security advisories
Jobs
Our community
Community
Services
Training
Hosting
Contributor guide
Groups & meetups
DrupalCon
Code of conduct
Documentation
Documentation
Drupal Guide
Drupal User Guide
Developer docs
API.Drupal.org
Drupal code base
Download & Extend
Drupal core
Modules
Themes
Distributions
Governance of community
About
Web accessibility
Drupal Association
About Drupal.org
Drupal is a
registered trademark
of
Dries Buytaert