Accessibility Widget by Welcoma – WCAG, ADA & EAA

Make your WordPress website more accessible Welcoma Accessibility Widget adds a lightweight, customizable accessibility widget to your WordPress website. It gives visitors an easy-to-use toolkit for adjusting text, color, reading and navigation settings to suit their needs without permanently changing your website's content or design. Whether you call it accessibility, a11y or simply being a good ally to every visitor, Welcoma gives your website practical tools to welcome more people. The plugin is designed for site owners who want to improve usability for visitors with visual, cognitive, motor and reading disabilities while working toward accessibility best practices referenced in WCAG 2.1 and 2.2, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the European Accessibility Act (EAA), Germany's Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) and Section 508. No coding, page-builder changes or design edits are required. Install the plugin, choose the tools you want to provide, customize the widget and publish it on your website. ✨ Key features ➜ 30 accessibility tools and 5 profiles, with 10 more tools (40 in total) and 5 more profiles in the separate Welcoma Pro add-on ➜ Ready-made accessibility profiles for common browsing needs ➜ Text, color, reading, navigation and motor-support tools ➜ Keyboard-navigable accessibility menu ➜ Built-in Accessibility Statement generator ➜ Widget interface available in 26 languages ➜ Optional page translation and other advanced tools in the separate Welcoma Pro add-on ➜ Customizable position, size, built-in launcher icon and color theme ➜ Responsive design for desktop, tablet and mobile ➜ Plain JavaScript with no front-end framework dependency ➜ Visitor preferences stored locally in the visitor's browser ➜ No visitor analytics or advertising cookies added by the widget Accessibility profiles Accessibility profiles let visitors enable a curated combination of adjustments with one click instead of configuring each tool separately. Included profiles can support needs such as: ✔ Reduced motion and flashing ✔ Improved visibility and readability ✔ Dyslexia-friendly reading ✔ Low vision ✔ Color vision support ✔ ADHD-friendly browsing (Pro) ✔ Cognitive support (Pro) ✔ Senior-friendly browsing (Pro) ✔ Motor and keyboard support (Pro) ✔ Screen-reader and blind-user support (Pro) Welcoma Pro also lets site administrators build and save custom accessibility profiles. Accessibility tools This plugin includes 30 tools across the following groups. The 10 tools marked (Pro) are provided by the separately distributed Welcoma Pro add-on and are not included in this plugin; with Pro, the widget offers 40 tools. Visual and text adjustments ✔ Font Size ✔ Line Height ✔ Letter Spacing ✔ Font Weight ✔ Align Text ✔ Readable Font ✔ Dyslexic Font ✔ Zoom ✔ Text Magnifier ✔ Big Cursor ✔ Contrast ✔ Color Blindness Filter ✔ Color Invert ✔ Monochrome ✔ Saturation ✔ Brightness ✔ Text Color (Pro) ✔ Title Color (Pro) ✔ Background Color (Pro) ✔ Hide Images Reading assistance ✔ Reading Line ✔ Reading Mask (Pro) ✔ Cognitive Load ✔ Text to Speech ✔ Voice and Reading Controls (Pro) ✔ Dictionary Navigation and interaction ✔ Keyboard Navigation ✔ On-Screen Keyboard (Pro) ✔ Focus Highlight ✔ Skip to Content ✔ Highlight Links ✔ Highlight Titles ✔ Highlight Content ✔ Highlight Hover (Pro) ✔ Interactive Highlight (Pro) ✔ Stop Animations ✔ Page Structure ✔ Tooltips (Pro) Audio, language and reset ✔ Mute Sounds ✔ Translate This Page (Pro) ✔ One-click reset Widget customization Customize the widget appearance from the WordPress dashboard to match your website. Available settings include: ➜ Widget position on the left or right side of the screen ➜ Horizontal and vertical offsets ➜ Launcher icon size ➜ Built-in launcher icons ➜ Launcher icon and background colors ➜ Header background, text and icon colors ➜ Menu background and text colors ➜ Module button colors for default and active states ➜ Reset button colors ➜ Footer background and text colors Accessibility Statement generator Create and publish an accessibility statement from the WordPress dashboard. The form includes fields aligned with common disclosure requirements, including details relevant to Germany's BFSG Section 14 / Annex 3. The statement is written in the widget's default language (26 languages supported) and lists the profiles and tools you have switched on. An accessibility statement should accurately reflect your website, testing process and remediation work. Review and update the generated content before publishing it. Multilingual widget The accessibility widget interface can display in 26 languages. Welcoma can detect the WordPress site language and use it as the initial widget language, while visitors can select another supported language when available. The Core plugin ships its widget interface translations locally and does not send customized widget text to an external translation service. Optional machine translation features, when enabled by an administrator, are provided only by the separately distributed Welcoma Pro add-on. The separately distributed Welcoma Pro add-on can add a Translate This Page tool; it documents that service in its own readme. Built for performance and privacy

• Plain, dependency-free JavaScript on the front end
• No jQuery or external UI framework required by the widget
• Visitor preferences stored in localStorage in the visitor's browser
• No visitor accessibility preferences stored on your server
• No visitor tracking or advertising cookies added by the widget
• Only enabled functionality and required assets are loaded

Accessibility standards and legal notice Welcoma provides tools inspired by and designed to support work toward:

• WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2
• ADA
• EAA
• BFSG
• Section 508

Important: installing an accessibility widget alone does not make a website fully accessible or guarantee legal compliance with WCAG, ADA, EAA, BFSG, Section 508 or any other standard or law. Accessibility also depends on your website's content, HTML structure, keyboard behavior, forms, color choices, media alternatives and overall implementation. Welcoma is a visitor usability aid and is not a substitute for accessible design, development, testing and remediation. Free and Pro The Free plugin includes the core accessibility widget, 30 accessibility tools and 5 profiles, widget styling controls, responsive behavior, multilingual interface support and the Accessibility Statement generator. Welcoma Pro is a separately distributed add-on that supplies 10 additional tools (40 in total) and 5 additional profiles, custom savable profiles, custom module labels, a custom accessibility title, custom launcher images, an optional connection to the Welcoma website scanner, optional machine translation, licensed updates and priority support. Website scanner The Welcoma website scanner on welcoma.app is live. It runs an automated check of your pages against WCAG 2.1 AA. Automated checks cover roughly a third of WCAG criteria, so the rest needs human review: keyboard use, screen-reader output, meaningful alternative text, understandable content and similar points. The scanner runs on welcoma.app, not inside this plugin; this plugin only links to it. More tools are available in the separate Welcoma Pro add-on → Explore Welcoma Pro · German: Preise Suitable for many types of websites Welcoma can be used on business websites, online stores, public-sector websites, educational platforms, healthcare websites, non-profit websites, agency sites, blogs, news portals and corporate websites. 🇩🇪 Made in Germany Welcoma Accessibility Widget is developed and maintained by webAufstieg GmbH in Germany with a focus on privacy, quality and useful accessibility features. Helpful links

• Welcoma website
• Welcoma website – German
• Integrations
• Website accessibility scanner

• Pricing and Pro plans
• Pricing and Pro plans: German
• Support and contact
• Blog
• Guides: German (Ratgeber)
• Accessibility
• Accessibility Statement

Automatic installation

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for "Welcoma Accessibility Widget".
3. Install and activate the plugin.
4. Open Welcoma Widget in the WordPress admin menu.
5. Enable the tools and profiles you want visitors to use.
6. Customize the widget's position, icon, size and colors.
7. Save your changes. The widget will appear on the front end.
8. Optional: create your Accessibility Statement from the Statement tab.

Manual installation

1. Download the plugin ZIP file.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
3. Upload the ZIP file and select Install Now.
4. Activate the Welcoma Accessibility Widget plugin.
5. Open Welcoma Widget and configure the widget.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.2 or later
• PHP 7.2 or later
• JavaScript enabled in the visitor's browser for widget interaction
• An internet connection is required only for visitor-requested dictionary lookups

1.1.0 Performance: the widget script is split in three. Before a visitor interacts, a page loads only the runtime (saved settings, launcher, light effects, loaders; about 10 KB compressed instead of 22 KB). The menu script arrives with the menu on hover, focus or touch of the launcher; the heavy effects (read aloud, keyboard navigator, page structure, dictionary, text magnifier, reading line, mute sounds) arrive when one of them is switched on or restored from saved settings. Accessibility: the launcher no longer pulses and the menu opens without animation for visitors whose system asks for reduced motion (prefers-reduced-motion). Accessibility: the Appearance tab checks the contrast of every colour pair of the widget (text on background, icon on icon background) and shows the ratio; pairs below 4.5:1 (WCAG AA) are flagged, pairs below 3:1 marked as failing. The check found the default "Reset all" button short of AA (white on coral, 3.5:1); the default and the Pine theme now use a darker coral (4.9:1). Existing installs keep their colours; the Appearance tab shows the hint. Works with Welcoma Pro 1.0.10 or newer. 1.0.11 New: the accessibility statement is generated in the widget's default language (Appearance tab; with "Automatic" the site language). All 26 widget languages are supported, with localized dates and right-to-left layout for Arabic and Hebrew. New: "Statement in widget" switch on the Statement tab to show or hide the statement in the widget. New: a confirmation checkbox must be ticked before a statement is generated, noting that the site owner is responsible for the conformance details. Change: statements carry the lang and dir attributes of their language, also when a translated copy is shown. Fix: on a site whose language is not English (e.g. German), the generated statement listed the profiles and tools by their English names; it now uses the translated texts (the widget itself was fixed in 1.0.9). Fix: after the statement is changed, visitors no longer see an older translated copy of it in their language. Fix: the statement form only accepts http(s) website addresses with a real host name. Before, a typo such as "ftp//x" was saved as "http://ftp//x". Fix: the statement generator understands language codes in any letter case or locale form ("zh-cn", "pt_BR", "de_DE") instead of falling back to English. New: a statement is not shown in the widget while it still contains a placeholder of the German or English template (the texts in square brackets). It can still be saved; the Statement tab says how many placeholders are left, and the Overview shows "Not published". This also applies to statements saved with earlier versions, which had placeholders for the non-accessible content and the market surveillance authority. New: the statement checklist also lists "Description of the service", "How the service works" and "Known non-accessible content". A section is only ticked once its placeholder has been replaced. Change: the "Note" / "Hinweis" at the end of the generated German and English statement is only shown in the editor, not to visitors. It also says that the template applies to services offered in Germany. New: German and English statements saved with 1.0.7 or earlier are not changed automatically. While a statement still calls EN 301 549 a harmonised standard or cites "§ 14 i. V. m. Anlage 3 BFSG" / "§ 14 in conjunction with Annex 3 BFSG", every admin screen shows a notice with an "Update statement" button. The update replaces only the old sentences that were not edited and adds the sections "Description of the service" and "How the service works". Important: these new sections contain placeholders, so after the update the statement is not shown in the widget until they are filled in. Until the button is clicked, the statement stays published as it is. 1.0.10 Fix: four texts whose English catalogue wording differed from the bundled English translation (Color Invert (full) and its description, the Keyboard Navigation description, the Pro Translate module) stayed in English on non-English sites. The bundled English texts now match the catalogue, existing installs are updated where the stored text is still the old default, and the English language file keeps the catalogue wording. 1.0.9 New: the Default language setting has the option "Automatic (language of the page)", now the default for new installs. The widget then starts in the language of the page a visitor is on, so a multilingual site (WPML, Polylang, TranslatePress) gets a German widget on its German pages and an English one on its English pages. Existing installs keep their chosen language; switch to Automatic in Welcoma > Widget > Default language. Fix: on a site whose language is not English, module names and descriptions the admin had not customised were shown in English when the widget was in the site's language (the English catalogue text was used instead of the bundled translation); the title could stay in the start language after switching to the site's language. 1.0.8 Performance: a page now carries only what the launcher needs (about 3 KB compressed in the HTML; before: 72 KB of widget CSS, configuration and font declarations on a site with a Remove Unused CSS feature). The widget styles are split into core (launcher, inline), page effects (loaded when a module is on or, for returning visitors, before the first paint) and menu (loaded on hover, focus or touch of the launcher); the configuration object only carries ids, positions and colours; module names, descriptions, UI strings, statement and footer brand are served as one static JSON file per language from wp-content/uploads/welcoma/ (written once per change, admin-ajax.php as fallback); the font declarations are loaded with the menu or the readable/dyslexic font module; the pre-paint script is inline and marked so optimization plugins keep it in place. The menu is no longer built in idle time (which let Remove Unused CSS features see all of its styles) but on intent, with its files prefetched after load. The widget script loads deferred. Exclusion filters for WP Rocket, Autoptimize, LiteSpeed Cache, Perfmatters and FlyingPress are registered. Use Welcoma Pro 1.0.8 or newer with this version, so its styles load the same way; older Pro versions still work. Performance: on page load the widget renders only its launcher button. The menu is built when the visitor first points at, focuses or touches the launcher. Until the menu is opened for the first time it stays hidden from layout, so its font files (Archivo) are not downloaded; the flag images of the language switcher load only when the switcher is opened (before: 26 flag images and 4 font files on every page view). Saved visitor settings still apply on load without opening the menu; on load only the modules with a saved setting are initialised. Speech voices are looked up when read-aloud is first used. Use Welcoma Pro 1.0.8 or newer with this version, so a custom launcher icon also appears in the menu header. 1.0.7 Change: plugin display name renamed to "Accessibility Widget by Welcoma – WCAG, ADA & EAA". The plugin slug and folder stay the same, so existing installs update as usual. Fix: modules switched off on the Modules tab are no longer shown in the widget. Before, a module that belongs to any profile (e.g. Keyboard Navigation and Skip to Content, which are part of the "Motor & Keyboard Support" and "Screen Reader / Blind Support" profiles) stayed in the widget even when that profile was switched off. Now only profiles that are switched on can add their modules. Fix: a module the admin switches off no longer stays active for returning visitors who had turned it on earlier. Before, its effect (e.g. hidden images or grayscale) was restored from the visitor's saved settings although the module was no longer in the widget, so it could not be switched off. 1.0.6 Change: the German widget texts are rewritten in natural German with informal address ("du"), e.g. "Links hervorheben" instead of "Markieren Sie Links", "Animationen stoppen" instead of "Stoppen Sie Animationen", "Motorik und Tastatur" instead of "Motor & und Tastaturunterstützung". Existing installs get the new texts automatically where the stored text is still the old default; texts edited by hand are kept. Fix: the skip link at the top of the page is translated into the site language (German: "Zum Inhalt springen") instead of always saying "Skip to main content". Fix: the skip link now points to the page's real main area and that target can take focus (Lighthouse "Skip links are not focusable"). Without a main area, or when the theme already has a skip link to it, the plugin's skip link is removed. Change: the readme links the scanner page https://welcoma.app/free-accessibility-scan/. 1.0.5 Change: the German widget texts now use "Barrierefreiheit" instead of "Zugänglichkeit" (menu title and the description of the dyslexia profile). Existing installs get the new wording automatically, unless the text was edited by hand. 1.0.4 Fix: the language files loaded by the widget's language switcher are now cached by the browser as intended. 1.0.3 Performance: pages only carry the widget texts of the start language (other languages load when a visitor switches), and the front-end JS/CSS ship minified. On a typical page the HTML is about 150 KB smaller. 1.0.2 Security: translated accessibility statements are filtered before they are shown to visitors. 1.0.1 Improved the "Reduced Motion & Flash" profile: it now also mutes sounds and lowers color saturation, in addition to stopping animations. 1.0.0 Initial release of Welcoma Accessibility Widget for WordPress.