Showing the statement in WordPress: shortcode and block

The WordPress plugin places the text of your accessibility statement on a page of your website – on your own domain and always in the most recently published version.

Requirement

The plugin is connected (Setting up and connecting the WordPress plugin) and the statement is published in the service. The plugin never shows a draft.

Before the first publication, the shortcode only shows the sentence “The accessibility statement cannot be loaded at the moment.” – to your visitors as well. So only link the page once the statement appears there.

Shortcode or block

Create a page, for example “Accessibility”, and insert:

[barrierefreiheitserklaerung]

The block editor offers the “Accessibility statement” block with the same settings. Link the page in your footer so it can be reached from every page.

Settings

The attribute names and values are German, the same in every language.

Example – only the known barriers, embedded one level deeper:

[barrierefreiheitserklaerung teil="maengel" ueberschrift="3"]

Cutting out a section

teil="maengel" looks for the section “Nicht barrierefreie Inhalte” (statement for public bodies) or “Bekannte Einschränkungen” (information under § 14 BFSG and voluntary statement). teil="kontakt" looks for “Feedback und Kontaktangaben” or “Kontakt bei Barrieren”.

If the plugin does not find the section or does not know the value, it outputs the whole statement without an error message.

The heading level

The statement starts with a main heading. In the middle of your page, that would be a second first-level heading – a defect under WCAG 1.3.1. With ueberschrift="2", the topmost heading in the output becomes a second-level heading, and all headings below move along. Values below 2 count as 2, values above 4 as 4.

If the statement sits under a further subheading on your page, choose 3.

The version line

With stand="ja", the text is followed by a line with version and date in your WordPress date format. It also tells you which version is currently shown: WordPress doesn’t show the statement, or shows an old one.

No effect: sprache

The sprache attribute is accepted but has no effect. The statement appears in the language it was approved in and carries the matching lang attribute.

Styling

The text takes on your theme’s styling. Three classes are available for your own rules:

• barrierepruefung-erklaerung – the wrapper around the statement,
• barrierepruefung-stand – the version line,
• barrierepruefung-hinweis – the notice when nothing can be loaded.

Below the text there is a note on the tool the statement was created with. In the Agency plan, it can be switched off under “Organization”.

When a new version appears

After a new publication, it takes up to 60 minutes until the plugin fetches the new version – longer with a cache plugin or your hosting provider’s cache. Details: WordPress doesn’t show the statement, or shows an old one.

If the service is unreachable, the plugin keeps showing the last version it fetched, with its original date. A statement does not vanish from your website because of an outage.